Class .* . 

Book , JH 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Cornell Study Bulletins 
for Teachers — No. 6 



^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



ESTHETIC 
EDUCATION 



BY 

CHARLES DeGARMO 

PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND ART OF EDUCATION 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



MOTTO: 

An aesthetic view of the world for every child 



SYRACUSE 
C W. BARDEEN 
1913 



Copyright, 19 13 
By CHARLES DeGARMO 



Mount Pleasant forests 

J. Horace Mc Far land Company 
Harrisburg, Pa. 



©CU350280 



PREFACE 



HIS BOOK maintains that every child 



should acquire in school a first-hand 



aesthetic view of the world, as he now 
acquires an intellectual or a moral view of it. 

Our present aesthetic teaching is defective 
in several particulars : First, in that it is left 
to specialists alone; second, because, in con- 
sequence of this fact, it covers only a part of 
the world that is beautiful; and, third, because 
it tends to lead the pupil to look for beauty 
only at second hand, as in pictures of things 
rather than in the things themselves. 

The first requisite in giving the pupil this 
first-hand view of the beauties of the world 
is that the teacher should acquire it himself. 
To this end, the book attempts to give a 
direct, non-technical analysis of the meaning 
and expression of the beautiful as seen in 
nature and the arts. It shows how and where 
to look for beauty, not alone in pictures and 
statues, but also in nature and in the domain 
of mechanics and of the arts that pertain to 
daily living. 




(v) 



vi 



PREFACE 



The second requisite is that the teacher 
should be able to impart the canons of good 
taste to the pupil, to lead him to see beauty 
wherever it exists, to distinguish the pre- 
tension of beauty from its reality, and to 
found and reinforce his appreciation by 
efforts at artistic creation, in drawing and 
music, to be sure, but also in language and 
in those everyday arts that enhance the 
pleasures of life. Many suggestions as to 
how these ends may be effected are given 
throughout the book, and especially in the 
concluding chapter. 

Only the general problem of aesthetic 
education is discussed. No attempt is made 
to instruct teachers of music or drawing, 
though it is hoped that they will find their 
work reinforced and universalized by what 
is here presented. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

Page 

Purpose of Esthetic Education . . i 

CHAPTER II 
Means of Esthetic Education . . 9 

CHAPTER III 
Scope of the Esthetic View . . . 16 

CHAPTER IV 
Constituents of the Beautiful . . 25 

CHAPTER V 
The Characteristic 33 

A. Kind of Meaning. 

1. Objective 33 

2. Subjective or personal . . 35 

3. Functional Meaning ... 40 

B. Extent of Meaning ... 43 

1. Particular 43 

2. General 44 

(vii) 



viii 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VI 

Page 

Means of Expression .... 47 

A. Distribution of Parts. . . .47 

1. Regularity and Rhythm . . 50 

2. Symmetry and Balance . . 53 

3. Harmony and Grace . . 58 

CHAPTER VII 

Means of Expression (continued) . 66 

B. Formal Orders of Beauty . . 66 

1. The Sensuous as Such . . 67 

2. The Mathematical (Proportion) 72 
(1.) Tools and Utensils . . 75 
(2.) Machines having Internal 

Development . . 85 

(3.) Fashion vs. Art . . 91 

3. The Dynamic .... 96 

4. Decoration .... 99 

5. The Vital 105 

6. The Typical . . . .107 

CHAPTER VIII 

Ideal Unity of Content and Form . no 

1. Form without Content . . 112 

2. Form Inadequate to Content . 113 

3. Inadequacies of Material . 114 

4. Imitations 115 



CONTENTS ix 
CHAPTER IX 

Page 

Suggestions on Acquiring an Esthetic 



View of the World . . . .121 

A. Attitude of Mind . . . .121 

B. Concerning Nature . . . 125 

C. Concerning the Useful Arts . 130 

D. Through Poetry . . . .133 

1. Poetry vs. Poesy . . . 135 

2. Psychological Sequence . .136 

3. Too Much Freedom . . 138 

4. The New Definite Forms of 

Verse .... 140 
(1.) The Ballade . . .142 
(2.) The Rondeau . . .144 
(3.) The Rondel . . .146 
(4.) The Roundel . . .147 
(5.) The Villanelle ... 148 
(6.) The Triolet . . . 151 
(7.) The Circle . . .153 



POEMS 

Page 

The Wild Rose (Sonnet) 4 

The White Birch . 12 

The Bird at the Banquet 14 

In Poppy Land 20 

The Spirit of Discovery 28 

Sailing on Biscayne Bay 31 

Tides 34 

The Wheel (Sonnet) 38 

The Lions 44 

Red (Sonnet) 69 

Blue 70 

Yellow 70 

On the Colossal Statue of Black Hawk 

(Sonnet) 108 

Play and Work (Ballade) 143 

My Opals (Rondeau) 145 

I Love to Sail (Rondel) ..... 146 
In Tender Grief (Roundel) . . . .147 
Sleep, Sweetheart, Sleep (Roundel) . .148 
The Parting of Romeo and Juliet 

(Villanelle) 149 

The Senior's Farewell (Villanelle) . . .150 
What Holds the World Up? (Triolets) . 151 
The New and The Old (Triolet) . . . 1 52 
The Spirit of the Sea (Circle) . . . .154 
(*) 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing Page 

Tools 75 

Guns 84 

Early Automobile Engines . . . . 84 

Recent Automobile Engines . . . . 84 

Locomotives 88 

Woodford Locomotive of 1862 .... 89 

Freight Locomotive 90 



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ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



CHAPTER I 

PURPOSE 

HE PURPOSE of aesthetic education 



is the acquisition by every child of an 



aesthetic view of the world, as he now 
acquires an intellectual or an ethical view. 
This does not mean that all things are beau- 
tiful, but that all things are capable of being 
judged as aesthetically pleasing, indifferent, or 
repulsive. Just as we now endeavor to com- 
prehend intellectually the world about us, 
whether in the realm of nature, or of institu- 
tional life, so we should be trained to per- 
ceive almost with the directness of instinct 
whether a thing is beautiful or not. There 
is a two-fold advantage in such training; 
first, that it greatly enlarges the scope 
of our pleasures; and secondly, that it 
leads naturally to efforts to increase the 
beautiful and to diminish the ugly in our 
environment. 
Though there is much literature on the 




A 



(i) 



/ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



teaching of the special fine arts, there is 
almost none on the larger problems of aesthetic 
education. A hundred years ago Schiller 
wrote a series of letters on 'The Esthetic 
Education of Man," but there is almost no 
subsequent extended discussion of the sub- 
ject. That Schiller should have urged such 
instruction on the ground that it contributes 
to the political education of the people seems 
surprising, for what has aesthetics to do with 
politics? Yet the poet's view does not appear 
unnatural when one considers the function 
that an appreciation of the beautiful may 
perform in life. Art, he thinks, mediates 
between the sensuous and the rational. It is 
the bridge we must cross in going from ani- 
mality to rationality. At the time of the 
Napoleonic wars the peasant, not being a 
self-functioning member of the state, but rest- 
ing rather at the level of a gross struggle for 
the material means for survival, could not be 
elevated by mere legislation to free citizen- 
ship, but must await the slower processes of 
gradual development. The road from serfdom 
to liberty, Schiller thought, must pass 
through the smiling realms of the beautiful. 
Therefore all men must have aesthetic 
education. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



But, civil liberty having been attained by 
other than aesthetic means, we need to find 
other reasons for aesthetic education than 
those advanced by Schiller. These reasons 
fall naturally into two groups, the psycho- 
logical and the social. Without too much 
anticipation of future exposition, it may be 
said, first of all, that aesthetic enjoyment is, 
perhaps above all others, free from selfish 
desire to exploit or consume that which is 
admired. A beautiful object makes us glad 
without at the same time making us hungry; 
it is as Keats says, "a joy forever." It is 
true that people sometimes mix aesthetic with 
other motives, as when they view a beautiful 
painting, at the same time asking how much 
it cost, or when seeing a beautiful house, at 
once desire to own it. But all appreciation 
that is truly aesthetic stops with the pure joy 
of contemplation. A beautiful object em- 
bodies the emotion that produced it, and 
should not at the same time stimulate the 
desire to consume it. Kant says, an object 
is beautiful "when without exciting selfish 
desire" it pleases us through its form. 

The egoistic and the non-egoistic view of 
the beautiful may be illustrated by the 
following lines: 



4 ^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



THE WILD ROSE 

Had I not found this rose of wild wood grace, 
Her life had else in solitude been spent, 
Her fragrance wasted and her petals rent; 
I'll pluck the rose, ere storms her glows efface. 
But pause, rash egoist! dost thou dare hold 
That blush and perfumed breath are meant for thee? 
Nay, nay! they lure to her yon velvet bee; 
She grants him sweets, he brings her grains of gold; 
She smiles for him who brings her heart's desire, 
Who sips the honied dew that upward wells, 
And yet her flushing charms all tongues inspire 
To praise the loveliness that in her dwells. 
Though not for me her smile and fragrant breath, 
Yet both I share, and would not be their death. 

The psychological purpose of aesthetic edu- 
cation, therefore, is to promote the pure, un- 
selfish joy of life, to enable us to see and 
appreciate the beautiful wherever it exists, 
and when possible to produce it where it is 
not, but should be. 

The social functions of the beautiful are on 
the one side spiritual and religious, and on 
the other economic. Bodies of men may 
enhance their sense of social sympathy by 
listening to strong or uplifting music, by the 
common enjoyment of beautiful architecture, 
painting, sculpture, the acted drama, litera- 
ture, or by united appreciation of the beauties 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



of nature. Most men are assisted in their 
religious life by the sight of beautiful objects, 
both in art and in nature, by the convincing 
power of the sermon and of the scripture 
lesson, or by the soothing and inspiring ren- 
dition of sacred music. The economic uses of 
aesthetic appreciation and producing power 
are many, pervasive, and wide-spread, for 
they touch almost every aspect of life in the 
home and in the community. The opinions 
of a people made sensitive to the difference 
between the beautiful and that which is 
either ugly or aesthetically indifferent in- 
directly affect every factory in the land, for 
we constantly discriminate in favor of that 
which conforms to the standards of good 
taste. Well-proportioned houses are pre- 
ferred to those of poor or bad design, while 
similar tests are applied to furniture and all 
other articles of household use or decora- 
tion. What is true of houses and their fur- 
nishings is equally true of clothing, and all 
other means of personal adornment. The 
plain is preferred to the ugly, the handsome 
to the plain, and the beautiful to the hand- 
some. This is not solely a choice between 
expensive and inexpensive things, the former 
being beautiful and the latter ugly, for in 



6 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



many cases the beautiful thing costs no 
more than an ugly one performing the same 
function; thus, a well-designed house of given 
materials and dimensions costs no more than 
a corresponding one of bad design; one color 
rarely costs more than another for interior 
decoration of walls, furniture, hangings, and 
the like, though of course stuffs undergo 
wide variation in price. Well-designed gar- 
ments, hats, shoes, etc., need not thereby be 
increased in price. When, therefore, a people 
have high standards of aesthetic perfection in 
the objects of use, the supply is bound to 
follow the demand. When we refuse to buy 
the ugly, something better is sure to be offered. 
If we did no more than raise the standards 
of taste among the people by our instruction 
in school, we should thereby elevate all manu- 
facture from raw materials in so far as the 
articles are made subject to aesthetic valu- 
ation. Things that are screened from sight 
may still be what they will aesthetically, 
though there is something yet to be said when 
the correlation between efficiency and aes- 
thetic quality is discussed. But we do more 
than elevate taste, for we enhance the power 
to produce the beautiful, at least in arrange- 
ment, so that people can select those articles 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



of dress or of household use which are har- 
monious; they can promote the beautiful as 
they hang pictures, arrange furniture, set 
tables, cook and serve food, make gardens, 
plant trees or shrubbery, keep their lawns 
clean and well mowed, make fences, walls, 
hedges and outbuildings, trim hats, make 
dresses, laces or embroideries, or promote 
beauty in dozens of other ways. These tastes 
and capacities act and react on individual 
and community in ways that are powerful 
and often subtle. They lead to harmonies 
in color, sound, and proportion, to good taste 
in decoration, and to a quickened sense of 
the eternally fitting. 

The difference between ugliness and beauty 
in their effect upon the minds and hearts of 
the young is adequately expressed by Plato 
in the "Republic" as follows: 

"We would not have our guardians grow 
up amid images of moral deformity, as in 
some noxious pasture, and there browse 
and feed upon many a baneful herb and 
flower day by day, little by little, until they 
silently gather a festering mass of corruption 
in their own souls. Let our artists rather be 
those who are gifted to discern the true nature 
of the beautiful and graceful; then will our 



8 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair 
sights and sounds, and receive the good in 
everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair 
works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a 
health-giving breeze from a purer region, 
and insensibly draw the soul from earliest 
years into likeness and sympathy with the 
beauty of reason." 



CHAPTER II 



MEANS 

4 S JOHN DEWEY says, men attempt 
y\ to enhance and perpetuate mental 
images charged with emotion by ob- 
jectifying them. 1 An aesthetic sense can 
therefore first of all be cultivated by creating 
mental images that are charged with emotion. 
Sometimes this may be effected by the mere 
contemplation of beautiful objects, as when 
one gazes at a sunset or looks upon a work of 
art. The image may be vivified and the emo- 
tion made more intense by reflection upon 
the deeper meaning of that which is repre- 
sented. This may be called passive education 
in aesthetic judgment and appreciation. It is 
good as far as it goes; frequently, however, 
children respond but feebly to our most en- 
raptured exclamations over the beauties of 
nature or of poetry, painting and sculpture. 
We may think their apperception at fault, 
and labor tirelessly to kindle the fires of 
enthusiasm. These are efforts to inject our 

1 "Cyclopedia of Education," article "Art in Education," 
Vol. I, p. 224. 

(9) 



io AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



own conceptions and emotions into our pupil's 
head; we should seek rather to evoke them. 

All great teachers of art insist that, to 
evoke aesthetic images and to intensify aes- 
thetic emotion in the student, one must not 
only permit him to objectify his emotion- 
charged image, but must encourage and aid 
him to do so. If we would have him appre- 
ciate the drawings of others, we must lead 
him to draw according to his own mental 
images, however imperfectly. His aesthetic 
sense may be blunted, however, by drill on 
technique. If he would appreciate painting, 
let him mix and apply colors; if he is to 
enjoy music at its highest estate, let him 
learn to sing or play; and so on throughout 
the useful and applied arts. This is good 
doctrine, but teachers are somewhat loath 
to apply it to themselves. They argue that 
it is good for children, but practically im- 
possible for themselves, because they are past 
the most plastic period of life. Doubtless 
this is in a measure true concerning many 
arts. One who has had no youthful training 
in music or drawing is perhaps more or less 
incapable of becoming an expert in these arts. 
But there is surely something that he can do 
artistically; and artistic production in one or 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



a few arts, fine or useful, will suffice, since 
one art creates vicariously love and appre- 
ciation of other arts. The world is beginning 
to perceive that artistic production is not 
necessarily a matter of age, but of disposition 
and determination. If DeMorgan can begin 
at seventy-five to write successful novels, 
why may not a man of sixty-three begin to 
write poetry? Both have worked and played 
with words throughout their lives; they have 
enjoyed and in a sense appreciated the world's 
masterpieces of prose and verse, and yet who 
has ever truly appreciated a sonnet that has 
never attempted to write one? 

It was reflections of this kind that led the 
writer of these pages to try out the theory in 
his own case. Some of the results of his efforts 
appear in these pages. These experiments 
may serve to explain the unusual phenom- 
enon of a didactic writer illustrating his 
doctrines by his own verse. These verses are 
intended both as encouragement and as warn- 
ing to younger teachers — encouragement to 
try, and warning not to put off trying too long! 

A biographical account of the initial 
stages of the plunge may suggest other and 
perhaps better methods to teachers who have 
a mind to try their hand at verse-making. 



12 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



On an outing with a class in aesthetic 
education in the spring of 19 12 at Cornell, 
a superb specimen of the white birch was 
found. The tree was duly admired, and upon 
returning to the university the writer began 
to cast about in his mind for expressions 
that would adequately describe what all 
had seen. But though impressions were 
abundant, the right form for them did not 
suggest itself. Recourse was then had to a 
volume of "Poetry of the Seasons," 1 when 
William Martin's "An Apple Orchard in 
the Spring" seemed to furnish the right 
meter and the right spirit. Consequently, 
by borrowing the meter and the expressions, 
"Have you seen," and "in the spring" the 
following lines were evolved: 

THE WHITE BIRCH 

Have you seen the white birch in the spring, 

In the spring? 
When the sunlight gleams upon her branches 

In the spring? 
When her green leaves, young and tender, 
Through their soft concealment render 
Glimpses of her outlines slender 

In the spring. 

1 Compiled by Mary I. Lovejoy. Silver, Burdett & Co., 
New York. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Have you seen her wave her branches in the spring, 

In the spring? 
Wave those airy, milk-white branches 

In the spring? 
As they glisten in the light 
Of a day divinely bright, 
When to see them is delight 

In the spring. 

Have you seen the sunbeams glancing in the spring, 

In the spring? 
Glancing on her leaflets glossy 

In the spring? 
When the wind sets them in motion, 
Like the ripples on the ocean, 
And they stir our fond devotion 

In the spring. 

If you have not, then you know not, in the spring, 

In the spring, 
Half the beauty of the birches 

In the spring. 
Past their tops of silver sheen, 
In the distance far are seen 
Blue-tinged hills in living green 

In the spring. 

The next attempt was in a different field 
and without suggestions from the poets. A 
distinguished educational statesman 1 had 
just died, and to him it was desired to pay a 

1 Charles Brantley Aycock, of North Carolina. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



tribute. The following from Taine's English 
Literature supplied the motive of the verses: 

"You remember, it may be, O King, that which some- 
times happens in winter when you are seated at table 
with your earls and thanes. Your fire is lighted, and 
your hall is warmed, and without is rain and snow and 
storm. Then comes a swallow flying across the hall; he 
enters by one door and leaves by another. The brief 
moment while he is within is pleasant to him; he feels 
not rain nor cheerless winter weather; but the moment 
is brief — the bird flies away in the twinkling of an eye, 
and he passes from winter to winter. Such, methinks, 
is the life of a man on earth, compared with the un- 
certain time beyond. It appears for a while; but what 
is the time which comes after — the time which was be- 
fore? We know not." 

THE BIRD AT THE BANQUET 

Into the banquet hall, deep in the night, 
Out of the darkness, into the light, 

Flew a bright swallow astray; 
Over the banqueters flooded with light, 
Winging his swift course into the night 

Back flew the bird on his way. 

Symbol of life for the child at its birth; 
Wandering spirit, here on the earth, 

Flutters it trustingly by. 
Emblem of death for the man in his might; 
Out into darkness, back into night, 

Wings he his way to the sky. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 15 

Short though thy stay, O thou flash of delight, 
Bird of the banquet, that pause in thy flight 

Still in our fancy we see; 
Comrade, thy passage, though brief was its span, 
Deep writ thy message on the warm heart of man, 

Forever remembered must be. 

The lesson is that not only should the 
teacher train his pupils in as many kinds of 
artistic production as possible, but that he 
himself should diligently practise the arts 
he has already learned, and should also try 
new ones. The latter effort will be worth 
while, if only for the fresh insight and in- 
spiration it supplies. 



CHAPTER III 



SCOPE OF THE AESTHETIC VIEW 

TEACHERS are disposed to regard the 
fine arts as the peculiar domain of the 
beautiful, and to confine to this field 
all their efforts at aesthetic education. Such 
a procedure omits nature and the so-called 
useful arts. 

The reasons are not far to seek. Factory 
methods have tended to develop efficiency, 
indeed, but also uniformity and sometimes 
plainness, if not ugliness, in their products. 
Even the constant repetition of an excellent 
design, say of a chair, makes the mind more 
or less indifferent to it, since the objectified 
ideal of the designer becomes lost in the very 
multitude of its reproductions. The work of 
the mind and heart is obscured by that of 
the machine. With the passing of the age of 
tools, when each object produced was in 
some sense a reflection of the mind and skill 
of the artificer, and with the coming of the 
machine which makes each object a copy of 
its prototype, it was perhaps inevitable that 
aesthetic excellence should be more and more 
06) 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



confined to those arts in which the produc- 
tion is individual, and necessarily reflects 
the emotion and skill of the artist. So 
much for the elimination of the useful arts 
from the domain of the beautiful. 

As to nature, the case is somewhat different. 
Nature produces what we consider her beau- 
tiful effects chiefly without the aid of man. 
What indeed have men to do with the glows 
of sunset, the formation and movement of 
the clouds, or the autumn glories of the 
trees? But, if we have nothing to do with the 
production of such effects, how can they be 
in any sense an objectification of our emo- 
tions? Men have long puzzled over this 
problem. Nature is so obviously beautiful 
at times (some say always) that the highest 
art has often been considered to be the most 
perfect imitation of nature. To paint a tree 
or a sunset like the original has often been 
deemed the height of art. But, in such a 
case, the beautiful is regarded only at second 
hand, for the artist's excellence has not been 
the objectification of his own thought and 
feeling, but rests solely in the technical 
excellence of his copy. This reduces art to 
technique. 

Do we consent, however, to this elimination 



1 8 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



of nature and the useful arts from aesthetic 
consideration? Certainly not, and least of all 
in the realm of nature, for every artist still 
seeks to emulate her beauties and perfections, 
even when imitation is farthest from his inten- 
tions. Rodin, the French sculptor, declares 
that nature is so perfect that the artist is 
never justified in distorting or ignoring her, 
but must always be true to what she teaches. 
Yet he exercises a selective privilege, since 
he admits to his studio only chosen models, 
and he reduces to permanent form only the 
striking poses that contribute to his purpose. 
The result is that though in one sense his 
statues are true to nature, in another they 
are entirely foreign to it. The thoughts and 
emotions of the artist are his own, so that 
what nature really furnishes to the pro- 
duct is the raw material, or, if one prefers, 
the separate gems that make up the tiara on 
the head of the queen of beauty. 

Then, since nature is absolutely essential 
to some of the noblest forms of art, it is 
evident that she cannot be excluded from 
aesthetic regard. Even though there should 
be complete aesthetic neglect of nature at 
first hand, yet we should be compelled to 
return to her as a guiding principle in paint- 



/ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



ing, sculpture and poetry, for which she fur- 
nishes so much of form and inspiration. 
Though man has no hand in the creation of 
flowers, sun, moon, stars, and ocean, yet 
these objects stimulate him to artistic cre- 
ation. How could thought be aesthetically 
expressed without the help of the beautiful 
objects of nature? The slightest exercise of 
the imagination sets mind and heart aglow, 
and this exercise of fancy may be aroused by 
anything that varies our ordinary prosaic 
view of the world. Thus, Mrs. Anna Botsford 
Comstock 1 writes as follows concerning the 
California Poppy: "Although this brilliant 
flower blossoms cheerfully for us in our 
eastern gardens, we can never understand 
its beauty until we see it glowing in masses 
on the California foot-hills. We can easily 
understand why it was selected as the flower 
of that great state, since it burnished with 
gold the hills, above the gold buried below; 
and in that land that prides itself upon its 
sunshine, these poppies seem to shine up as 
the sun shines down. 19 Though these lines 
are sufficiently poetical already, yet they 
suggested to the writer the following verses: 

1 "Handbook of Nature Study," p. 66. Comstock Pub- 
lishing Co., Ithaca, N. Y. 



20 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



IN POPPY LAND 

Poppies shine up as the sun sbines down 

On the gold-clad hills of our western strand, 

And the wealth rolls out as the men dig down 
In the rock-ribbed earth or the fertile land, 
By the shores of her gleaming sea. 

Stars shine out as the sun goes down 

'Neath the fading bars of the flame-lit west, 

And my hope springs up as their rays beam down 
Through the silent space of the realms of rest 
On the face of the restless sea. 

Love smiles up as the moon smiles down 

On the man of deeds and the maid of song, 

For the heart's lay swells as the bird's dies down, 
And this love is deep as the days are long 
Till we sail on her moon-lit sea. 

Faith looks up as the night shuts down, 

For when hope is bright and her love grows strong, 
Then the soul will trust, though the rain come down, 

That the storm will pass, as it sweeps along 
To be lost in the heaving sea. 

Nature has, moreover, claims of her own 
that may not be disregarded, for if we look 
at her from her own standpoint, we shall 
find that she is not a fortuitous and mean- 
ingless aggregation of particulars, which we 
may or may not admire. She is organized 
life in some aspects, and organized force in 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



others, and contains her significance within 
herself. The perfume of a flower was not 
intended for the nose of a man, however 
much he may enjoy it, but for the attraction 
of insects. The perfection of nature's means 
for the performance of function is surely 
a proper sphere for aesthetic study and 
enjoyment. 

William Morris and John Ruskin would 
restore the tool economy that began to disap- 
pear at the end of the eighteenth century, for 
to them a machine-made article was devoid of 
beauty, since it had not risen from the skill, 
the creative thought, and the personal affec- 
tion of the artist-artisan. They thought that 
the useful arts should not depart from the 
aesthetic field, although they had actually 
done so. Emerson, writing in the middle of 
the nineteenth century, laments this separa- 
tion of the fine and useful arts brought about 
by the machine, and says: "Beauty must 
come back to the useful arts, and the dis- 
tinction between the fine and the useful arts 
be forgotten. If history were truly told, if 
life were nobly spent, it would no longer be 
easy or possible to distinguish the one from the 
other. In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful." 1 

1 Complete works. Concord Edition, Vol. IV, pp. 367-368, 



22 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Whether we like it or not, the age of tools 
is as much gone as that of Napoleon — and it 
will not come back, the arts and crafts move- 
ment notwithstanding. Most furniture will 
continue to be machine-made. But were 
Morris and Ruskin crying for the moon? 
Is Emerson demanding the impossible? 

Yes, if what they desired implies that past 
conditions of production must be restored; 
no, if they thought that individual aesthetic 
productivity is entirely or mostly excluded 
by the existence of the factory. It may be 
freely conceded that textiles, furniture, imple- 
ments for house and field, agencies for trans- 
portation, and much of our clothing are now 
and will in the future be made by machines. 
This fact does not, however, destroy beauty 
in the useful arts; it changes its direction, 
and doubtless its scope. 

In the past, the ordinary user of furniture, 
for example, did not produce it for himself, 
but purchased it from the artist-artisan. 
Consequently, whatever aesthetic valuation 
the user placed upon such an article lacked 
the element of his own creative productivity, 
and was then, as now, passive and second- 
hand. In this respect, therefore, except for 
the variety involved, the modern user of 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 23 



manufactured articles is in the same psy- 
chological attitude as the user of the hand- 
made articles of long ago. Moreover, in 
many arts, pottery, for example, manufac- 
ture has not only cheapened production, but 
has greatly improved it. Whereas the peas- 
ant or poor man in general once ate his 
meals from pewter, his successor of today 
may freely enjoy most beautiful porcelain 
dishes. What could once be afforded by 
the rich only may now come into general 
use. In many cases it is good taste that the 
poor man lacks, rather than the means to 
gratify it. 

But what about the factory workman him- 
self, who finds that the designer has once for 
all created a form which is endlessly repro- 
duced, and who sees a machine furnishing the 
skill that was formerly the province of his 
own hand? Doubtless there is an aesthetic 
loss here, since for some hours each day he is 
an artisan rather than an artist. But the 
machine does not at the worst absorb his 
attention for more than a third of the day. 
In his avocations and in his home life there 
is still abundant opportunity for the cul- 
tivation and active use of his creative powers 
in the realm of the useful arts. In this 



24 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



respect the factory workman is not worse off 
than the remainder of his family at home, or 
than the agricultural or business classes. If 
modern life is aesthetically barren in its daily 
living, we have only our faulty education 
and our perverted ideals concerning the realm 
of the beautiful to blame. 

How the useful arts may be made the 
source of much pure aesthetic enjoyment will 
be further discussed in subsequent sections. 



CHAPTER IV 



CONSTITUENTS OF THE BEAUTIFUL 



HE CONSTITUENTS of the beautiful 



are two: (i) An aesthetic content, 



called the characteristic, and (2) an 
adequate expression through a sense medium. 

So far as the beautiful product is the ob- 
jectification of man's thought and emotion, 
its content may be said to be conception, 
idea, meaning or significance. This may 
range all the way from the lightest fancy to 
the most profound thought, as may be plainly 
seen in poetry, which compasses the whole 
gamut of human feeling and conception. A 
verse would be utterly trivial that contained 
no idea whatever — a mere aggregation of 
nonsense syllables, like 



That poetry must have a thought content 
would hardly be questioned, but with respect 
to painting and sculpture opinion is not so 
unanimous, for many artists seem to be 
satisfied if they can produce something sen- 




Fee fo fum, 

Fi fol de rol de ray. 



(25) 



26 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



suously pleasing, quite irrespective of any 
meaning or significance it may express. Thus, 
in a painting of a dead fish, the form may be 
correctly drawn and the scales may flash as 
they would were the living creature dashing 
through sun-lit water. But of suggestion, 
except possibly to the angler or to the epicure, 
there may be little, while of real thought 
there is perhaps none. The artist has con- 
tented himself with the technique of expres- 
sion without regard to what is expressed. 
His art, in such a case, seems to descend to 
a difficult form of photography, in which the 
process is indeed difficult, but the result still 
a photograph. He has kept the body of his 
art, but has discarded its soul, the creations 
of his own imagination, surely the more 
precious part. 

Here, however, is a painting containing 
both content and form. It is of The Lord's 
Supper in a small rural German community. 
There stands the earnest minister in his 
black robe, dispensing the bread and wine 
to his worshipping congregation of perhaps 
a dozen persons. His assistant looks on with 
a somewhat professional air, the lawyer ob- 
serves the ceremony with respect, yet appar- 
ently in an analytical frame of mind, but the 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



peasants in the foreground are entirely 
absorbed in devotion. They gaze with rapt 
attention at their leader, or partake of the 
bread with downcast eyes. An old man sits 
at the end of the table with wrinkled visage 
and toil-hardened hands. His bowed head, 
his closed eyes, and his reverent expression 
betoken a body at rest and a mind at peace. 
The meaning, the thought, the significance 
of the whole are manifest to the most casual 
observer. 

That is the best portrait which best ex- 
presses the character of its subject; that the 
most excellent landscape painting which 
reveals the truest aspects of nature, and 
which best portrays the emotions that such 
scenes evoke in the sensitive observer. Every 
great piece of statuary is likewise instinct 
with meaning. 

In Lorado TafVs Monument to Columbus, 
which stands in front of the Union Station 
at Washington, the figure-head of the ship 
on which the statue of Columbus rests is 
a beautiful form called the "Spirit of Dis- 
covery." 

This is what she means to the writer, 
and what she may well mean to every 
teacher: 



28 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY 

O pilot of the unsailed seas, 

Thine eyes bent forward on thy quest, 
Thy wings outspread to meet the breeze, 

Thy hands still resting on thy breast, 
That hope deferred or rising fear 

Chill not the courage of the band 
Who, bold to seek, still fail to hear 

The breakers roar on India's strand — 
Thy glowing ardor fires the heart, 

Thy crystal vision sees the goal, 
Our sun, our star, our sailing-chart, 

Of all research thou art the soul! 

Fair guide of youth's frail cockle-shell, 

Of venturous lads, who peer o'er rim 
Of their small world, and fain would tell 

What lies beyond their outlook dim; 
Thou fount of hope by day, by night, 

To sailors bound to truth's far port, 
Though storms assail, give thou the might 

To reach the bay, to pass the fort. 
Bright spirit that Columbus led, 

Direct our course on sea, on land, 
Lead through the mists till life is sped, 

Give light and strength and guiding hand. 

Other elements of aesthetic content par- 
ticularly prominent in architecture, in the use- 
ful arts, and in nature, are those of purpose 
and function. The expression, form follows 
junction, is familiar to the architect, and 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



means, of course, that the proportions of a 
structure should answer to its purposes. 
A "sky-scraper" may be well adapted to busi- 
ness, but it is not adapted to worship. 
Small, narrow windows were excellent when 
glass was scarce and militant enemies plenti- 
ful, but they may be quite out of place in 
modern structures where much light is 
needed, especially since glass is easily pro- 
cured, and there are no outer assaults to fear. 
That is a well-designed piece of furniture 
which performs perfectly its various func- 
tions. Chairs should not have wavy or highly 
decorated legs, since such elaborations are 
foreign to the functions of those parts. 

A first-hand appreciation of the beauties 
of nature involves not only mere sensuous 
impression, as the flaming colors of a sun- 
set or of autumn leaves, but adaptation 
to purpose; not the purposes of men, to be 
sure, but the purpose of nature herself, as 
in the coloring of petals or the emanation of 
odor. He sees most beauties in nature who 
regards her primarily from her own stand- 
point, and only secondarily from his own. 
The daisy or the dandelion may be a plague 
to the tiller of the soil, but either may be a 
source of aesthetic enjoyment to one who 



30 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



views it in relation to itself. Children love 
the dandelion, even if the lawn-keeper does 
not. 

The means of aesthetic expression, unlike 
the characteristic, are not subject to question 
or to subtle distinction, but are plain and 
unmistakable, for they are the concrete, 
sensuous embodiment of whatever nature 
or the artist is seeking to express. Archi- 
tectural ideas are expressed in wood, stone, 
brick, or concrete. The sculptor utilizes 
chiefly marble and bronze; the painter, 
canvas, oils, pigments, and water-colors; the 
manufacturer, wood, iron, steel, clay, alumi- 
num, cotton, wool, silk, and the like. The 
musician employs sounds and the poet words, 
whether spoken or written or sung. Nature 
appeals to eye and ear in a multitude of 
sights and sounds, as from the green of the 
grass to the blue of the sky, or from the song 
of the thrush to the roar of the cataract. The 
most universal means for expressing thoughts 
and feelings is undoubtedly the written word, 
sometimes in prose, but most often in verse. 

The following lines represent the author's 
attempt to express in metrical form the 
sights and sounds and pleasures of winter 
sailing on Biscay ne Bay, Florida: 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



SAILING ON BISCAYNE BAY 
(7b Commodore R, M. Munroe) 

The waters call! O ho! Come sail 

Far out on Biscay ne Bay! 
The winter's sun is bright and warm, 

The air is that of May. 
The "Doris" waits; she's headed east 

To greet the morning breeze, 
And here it comes across the bay 

From off the Southern seas! 
Now loose the stops, shake out the sails, 

We'll start without delay; 
Like mullet schools that flash about, 

We, too, are out for play. 
Upon the taut'ning anchor rope 

Let's heave with might and main, 
Then out upon her broad expanse 

We'll sail on Bay Biscayne. 

The anchor's up, the sails are full, 

We're off on Biscayne Bay! 
Stand by for shoals and orders sharp, 

When once she's under way! 
'Tis southward ho! we turn, the palms 

Appear on Soldiers' Key 
Like filmy ghosts; they surely seem 

Mirage upon the sea. 
Across our bow the silver scales 

Are flashing in the sun, — 
A school of Spanish mackerel — 

Their frolic, too, begun. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Come sing with zest our boating song 

And lift the gay refrain: 
Farewell to care! to joy all hail! 

We sail on Bay Biscayne! 

But hold! what shines across our course 

Far down on Biscayne Bay? 
'Tis yellow sand on "Feather Bed," 

The bank that bars our way. 
Then peer ahead to find the stakes 

That guide us safely through, 
While here the keys that lock us in 

Upon our port we view. 
Behold the colors of the bay! 

All shades of blue and green, 
And in the noor tide's shimmering air 

An opalescent sheen. 
The sun declines; we homeward turn 

Upon our land-locked main, 
Resolved that oft in coming days 

We'll sail on Bay Biscayne. 



CHAPTER V 



THE CHARACTERISTIC 



A. KIND OF MEANING 




HE CONTENT of the beautiful, or 



the kind of meaning or significance 



expressed, depends somewhat upon 
the art under consideration. In some cases, 
especially in painting, sculpture and poetry, 
it is plainly concrete and objective; at other 
times in these arts it is personal or subjective, 
while in the case of architecture, nature, and 
the useful arts it is largely functional. Each 
of these aspects will be briefly discussed in 
turn. 

I. Objective. 

The character of individuals may be rep- 
resented in painting, sculpture, or poetry, 
whether the personages be real or ideal. 
In like manner, the artist or poet may rep- 
resent age, youth, joy, love, friendship, hope, 
destiny, grief, struggle, conflicting emotions, 
victory, peace, religious feeling, renunci- 
ation, aspiration, and the like. Illustrations 
will at once occur, such as "The Niobe," 



c 



(33) 



34 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



"The Victory of Samothrace," Rembrandt's 
"Portrait of Himself," "Breaking Home Ties," 
"The Sistine Madonna;" David Gray's "In 
the Shadow," beginning, "Die down, O dis- 
mal day;" Alice MeynelPs "Renouncement," 
and innumerable others to be found in poets 
from Chaucer to Kipling. 

The following is an expression of friendship 
in verse: 

TIDES 

Tides flow in the hours of morning 

With a still, resistless might, 
Or they bring our ships with tumult 

In the watches of the night. 

y They ebb in the hours of darkness 
Or in those of passing day, 
And the boat that rides in the harbor 
In silence they bear away. 

Friends come on the waves of gladness, 
When our life is filled with bloom, 

Or they come on floods of sorrow, 
When the heart is bowed in gloom. 

But whether they come in winter, 

Or whether they go in May, 
They bring us stores of heart's ease, 

Or they bear our cares away. 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 35 



As long as the tides move inward, 
As long as they outward glide, 

So long will the flow of friendship 
In the tides of life abide. 

2. Subjective, or Personal. 

(1) Poetry and painting frequently reflect 
the individual moods of the artist, serving 
as vehicles for the utterance of his thoughts 
and feelings. A landscape may represent not 
only the objective facts of nature, but also 
states of mind; for one may be full of sunshine 
and cheer, while another is full of depression 
and gloom. A recent painting by Arthur B. 
Davies, entitled 'The Boy and the Sea," 
shows a boy sitting at the water-side and 
gazing out over the bay. The painter has 
put into the picture just what he conceives 
that the boy saw, and as he saw it. The 
foliage at right and left is massive but in- 
distinct in detail, the water in the foreground 
is flooded with light, but farther off grows 
hazy and opalescent, while in the distance it 
fades into an indistinct blur of forms and 
colors. "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn," 
by Whitman, is filled with the woe of the 
writer, the objective facts of nature, such as 
the hermit thrush, the star, the hands of his 



36 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



comrades, the sprig of lilac, and the swamp 
and the cedar trees being used as means to 
emphasize and give concreteness to his 
utterance. Naturally, these subjective as- 
pects of art are remote and elusive to youth, 
whose experiences have rarely yet reached 
the subjective stage. Consequently, such 
art should come late, or not at all to the 
adolescent. 

(2) Any object, — scenery, plants, flowers, 
tools, machines, utensils, etc., may be viewed 
in its idealized relation to the w T hoIe of life. 

If the artistic representation of personal 
moods, of self-utterance and reflection, are 
remote from the interests of the young, the 
idealizing of otherwise prosaic facts is psy- 
chologically very close to youth, and fur- 
nishes a wealth of opportunity for inculcating 
an aesthetic view of the world. 

A cotton crop is beautiful, not alone from 
the color of the blossoms or from the tropic 
snow of its opening bolls, but from its rela- 
tions to the lives and activities of men. 
Think of the labor and hopes bound up in 
its cultivation, gathering, ginning, manu- 
facture, and its use to clothe the form of 
beauty or the back of toil! It keeps millions 
of men at work, and countless millions of 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



dollars employed in capital. It supplies the 
means for food, raiment, shelter, education, 
culture, recreation, to those who cultivate or 
manufacture it. It supplies food for cattle 
and oil for men, and nutriment to growing 
plants. It sets thousands of wheels in motion, 
and is carried to the uttermost parts of the 
earth. It calls, in short, for a poet to perceive 
and express its beauty. 1 

The same is true of Indian corn. This was 
the breadstuff of the aborigines. It made pos- 
sible the settlement and development of the 
country. With his bag of parched corn, the 
pioneer could venture into remote regions 
with some hope of survival. This grain is 
not only the food of man, but it is the main- 
stay of the animal life of the farm. Its by- 
products are many and important. Above 
all other crops, it is the reliance of the 
American nation. Poets have sung its virtues, 
while every household knows them. At all 
stages of its growth it is interesting and 
attractive to the eye. 

What could be more prosaic than a mere 
wheel? True its rim is circular, returning into 
itself, and thus becoming a symbol of eternity. 

1 Compare with James Lane Allen's description of a flax- 
field, in "The Reign of Law." 



38 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



A hint of the possibilities of relating it to 
many and important aspects of life is seen 
in the following lines: 



THE WHEEL 

On creaking disks of wood the peasant's cart 
Sustained its load and onward wound its way; 
Beside her wheel Priscilla sang her lay 
Of love, and, spinning, won John Alden's heart. 
The potter shapes at will from plastic clay 
On circling plane his vessels of delight; 
The balanced watch ticks off by day and night 
The rolling years of life, both green and gray. 
Upon their cycles twain, the riders reel 
O'er hill and dale like forest deer in flight, 
And on resilient tire and spring of steel 
The horseless carriage flashes on the sight. 
Ah, Mercury I thou sprite with winged heel, 
Thou'rt left outdone behind the flying wheel. 

"The Old Oaken Bucket" is aesthetically 
viewed in the song, not alone because it 
hung in the well, but because it was related 
so intimately to the scenes of its author's 
childhood. One poet celebrates the hanging 
of the crane, and the launching of the 
ship; while another pictures the homely 
objects about the old-time fireplace — the 
cat's dark silhouette on the wall, the house- 
dog outspread on his paws, the apples sput- 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



tering in a row, the slow-simmering mug of 
cider, the nuts from brown Octobers wood, 
the wide-mouthed fireplace and its roaring 
fire — all these are made aesthetically pleasing, 
not because they are described in poetry, 
but because of the associations they suggest 
of what life may be, even under pioneer con- 
ditions. Whenever the imagination plays 
about an object, expanding it and relating 
it to what is significant and vital, then the 
aesthetic faculty is at work. A tree may be 
mere fuel for the woodman, or it may be the 
seat of nature's most subtle processes, or the 
home of birds and the resort of lovers. Flow- 
ers are naturally beautiful from their forms 
and colors alone, but they take on new beau- 
ties when their analogies and meanings in 
the lives of men are added. What may not 
hills, mountains, rivers, creeks, waterfalls, 
forests, prairies, valleys, herds, become to the 
imaginative observer? 

And what inspiration to the teacher to 
know that with a little encouragement and 
practice his students may make this humdrum 
old world of ours burst into beauty, like the 
ice-storm of the night when lit up by the 
rays of the morning sun! 



40 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



3. Functional. 

From the standpoint of form, architecture 
began when men first studied proportion; 
but from the standpoint of meaning it began 
when adaptation of form to function was 
first considered. Styles and ornaments may 
come and go, but these two factors, form and 
function, are eternal, since they lie at the 
foundation of the aesthetics of the building 
art. The significance, or content, of archi- 
tecture, therefore, lies in the adaptation of 
form to function. It is a difference of con- 
ception which determines that a Greek temple 
should have low-lying horizontal lines, and 
a Gothic cathedral long vertical ones. In 
either case the structure is adapted to its pur- 
pose, and could never be mistaken for any- 
thing else or fittingly applied to any other 
use. To use a temple of the Lord as a bar- 
rack for soldiers is a desecration, not only to 
religion, but to art also. A dwelling is as 
different from an institutional structure as 
the latter is from a store or an office building. 

The function of a chair is to support the 
body, usually the back also, and often the 
arms. These functions could be as perfectly 
performed in antiquity as they can be by the 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



chairs of today. Moreover, they are hardly 
subject to ideal development, hence chairs, 
like clothing and other articles of domestic 
use, have been influenced by fashion, and 
improved or spoiled by decoration. About 
the only modern inventions applied to the 
chair are the swivel seat for business purposes 
and the movable back, designed by William 
Morris and bearing his name. But, in the 
end, the meaning of the chair as an aesthetic 
object depends upon how well it fulfills its 
functions. 

The same is true of articles of clothing — 
hats, for example. A New York milliner is 
said to have exclaimed, "Hats may come and 
hats may go, but art goes on forever!" At 
times the question arises, "Has not art 
actually gone?" So far as its idea is concerned, 
the aesthetic value of the hat must be deter- 
mined by the degree of its functional excel- 
lence. To be sure, it must in its variety of 
shape and decoration harmonize with the 
remainder of the costume, be of suitable 
materials, etc. But these matters are to be 
decided when means of expression are dis- 
cussed. 

Frequently, parts that once had a function 
but have now lost it are retained as decora- 



42 ^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



tions. Thus the two buttons at the back of 
the dress coat or the "Prince Albert" were 
once used to fasten back the front bottom 
edges of the coat, as may be seen in the uni- 
forms of continental officers. This custom is 
now abandoned, but the button remains as 
a faint reverberation of the past — as the 
vermiform appendix, so to speak, of sartorial 
art. Houses are likewise often afflicted with 
like remainders, such as towers and arches 
which have no use, or as narrow windows 
where wide ones are needed; or distortions 
of material, as where uniform concrete blocks 
are treated as if they were bricks, etc. 

In higher degree even than architecture 
and the useful arts, nature finds her true 
aesthetic meaning in the adaptation of form 
to function. The elm tree, for example, has 
a plan or ideal of structure beautifully adap- 
ted to the performance of all tree functions — 
the short trunk, the long, gently-flaring, and 
elastic branches, with their wealth of foliage. 
The sugar maple has another radically dif- 
ferent plan of organization, but one equally 
beautiful. The oak, the hickory, the pine, 
the hemlock, the apple, the orange, has each 
its individual form of being, which is the most 
suitable for expressing its peculiar character- 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 43 



istics, and performing most effectively its 
life functions. In this sense, all nature is 
beautiful when at its perfection, as so many 
artists maintain. The reason why we fail to 
see beauty in snakes, bugs, and weeds is that 
we are judging them from the standpoint of 
our own prejudice, convenience, or profit. 

B. EXTENT OF MEANING 

The meaning of a bit of nature, an article 
of domestic use, or a painting or a statue, 
may be wholly particular or individual. It 
may mean nothing beyond itself, as in an 
ordinary photograph of a person, a kodak 
picture of a house or a landscape, or the 
bust of a non-representative man. Much of 
the illustration in current periodicals is of this 
character, and could not be understood 
without the legend that goes with it; whereas 
a work of art with a universal or even a 
general meaning needs no label to explain it. 
Most cuts of actresses represent more or 
less pretty women, posed in sentimental or 
meaningless attitudes. They are apparently 
trying to "look pleasant," by gazing at some 
imaginary moon or star or cloud, or by 
showing their teeth in way of smile. 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Some pictures, however, are wider than 
their frames, for they convey a general if not 
a universal meaning. The three gleaners in 
Millet's picture represent the myriad peasant 
women of Europe, who toil regularly in the 
fields. The same is true of all this painter's 
representations of peasant life and feeling. 
All great statuary has this same universality 
of meaning, as in Angelo's "Moses," Rodin's 
"The Thinker," Lorado Taft's "The Blind," 
or his "Lions" on the great fountain to 
Columbus at Washington. The latter seem 
like sphinxes from the Nile, being utterly 
indifferent to the tumult going on about 
them. Their eyes are directed to the far 
distance, and they seem unconcerned with 
the fate of nations. Here is what they mean 
to the writer: 

THE LIONS 

Twin warders ye from Egypt's desert sands, 

Where countless seasons roll with changeless face; 

Ye symbolize to men of every land 

The deathless fame of him whose fount ye grace. 

Ye fan not here a nation's flame, 

Or bid her foes beware; 
Ye hold in trust a fadeless name 

Committed to your care. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 45 



Through the endless years 

Your watch shall abide, 
And your vigil shall be 

As time to the tide, 
As sun to the sea. 

The true artist makes his landscape 
paintings stand for more than the individual 
scene portrayed, as may be seen in marine, 
forest, or other views. The functional mean- 
ing portrayed in a great piece of architecture 
is general for that type, as each Gothic 
cathedral represents in a way all other 
cathedrals of this kind; a Greek temple is 
any Greek temple in its general significance. 
In like manner, pictures of locomotives, 
steamships, sailing vessels, docks, stations, 
bridges, etc., are representative, each of its 
class. 

The nature of artistic production is such 
that the general must be portrayed by the 
particular, or at least is most artistically 
thus portrayed. One may indeed write 
rhymed philosophy, but it is not poetry 
unless the sensuous particular is used to 
symbolize the abstract thought. A deep 
philosophy of life does indeed underlie the 
masterpieces of the world, as in Shakes- 
peare's dramas, or Goethe's "Faust," yet 



46 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



it is the universal shining through the par- 
ticular that makes it poetry rather than 
prose. 

He is only half an artist who has the 
thought but is unable to clothe it in artistic 
imagery, or who has the imagery but lacks 
the thought. There may indeed be a place 
for the purely individual in art, as there is 
a place for photography; yet it can prove 
but transient in its application, and it is 
destined to disappear with the event that 
gave rise to it. But universal meaning in 
art is timeless, and it always delights the 
mind that comprehends it, provided of course 
it is adequately expressed. 



CHAPTER VI 



MEANS OF EXPRESSION 
A. DISTRIBUTION OF PARTS 

SINCE the meaning that underlies the 
beautiful must always find expression 
through sensuous means, such as marble 
and bronze in statuary; stone, brick, wood, 
and concrete in architecture; canvas, pig- 
ments, etc., in painting; words and musical 
sounds in poetry and music; also trees, grass, 
flowers, and their parts, sunlight, etc., in 
nature; metals and other substances in the 
useful arts; and color and shape in all arts 
and in nature; it follows that the distribution 
of parts must be a topic of much importance. 

Disregarding in large measure the value of 
the characteristic, the ancients dwelt upon the 
external expression, and seemed to find in 
this the essence of beauty. The Greeks 
pointed out that diversity of details if brought 
to unity forms a higher type of beauty than 
any single element, say color, could possibly 
produce. Thus, a pile of marble blocks is not 
comparable in aesthetic effect to the same 
blocks suitably arranged and brought to 

(47) 



48 ^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



unity in a temple; just as a single block, 
however highly polished, is inferior in beauty 
to the statue that might be hewn from it. 
The block is simple and massive, possessing 
few details that can be brought to unity, but 
is already a unity with only small diversity. 
A succession of single isolated tones of voice 
or instrument gives little or no pleasure; but, 
properly united into a unity, the tones may 
become agreeable. 

"Unity in variety," or "variety in unity," 
are therefore phrases to conjure with in art. 
This is particularly noticeable in pictures. 
If any parts are there merely to fill the space 
and perform little or no function in the ex- 
pression of the idea of the picture, then we 
regard them as superfluous and as obstacles 
rather than aids to the purpose of the work. 
On the other hand, where every element 
has a part to play in the expression of the 
whole, and where all parts fall into a unity 
in this expression, we find the aesthetic effect 
greatly augmented. An illustration may be 
found in Spiegle's etching entitled "Brewing 
Mischief." 

"What particular piece of mischief the 
little maid is brewing, it would be hard to tell, 
but it is easy to see that there is mischief in 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 49 



the air. The face and pose of the gypsy maid 
are surcharged with the growing determi- 
nation to do something that will be a mix- 
ture of audacity and frolic; for how can she 
help it, with all the stimulating influences 
about her? 

"First, there is the cauldron on its tripod. 
What does it contain? Each may surmise 
for himself what is in it that brews the 
spirit of mischief for a maid so tender. Per- 
haps, among the rest, the impertinent caw 
of a crow, the saucy whisk of a squirrel's tail, 
and maybe just a hair from the tail of Old 
Nick himself. Whatever is in the pot, it is 
plain that it is mischief that is brewing; for 
who feed the fire? A lot of brownie imps, as 
innocently audacious as the little mistress 
they serve. They bring the brush to feed the 
fire, and blow the flame that boils the brew 
that helps the maid to make the mischief. 

"And on the other side, what have we? 
A witch's broom and conical hat; under which 
crouches a kitten bewitched, ready for a wild 
charge upon grandaddy-Iong-Iegs in front. 
Finally, in the rear rises the moon ready to 
give full backing to all mad freaks of the 
little lunatics in front. 

"Everything contributes to the central 

D 



50 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



idea, the unity of the whole — the fertile mind 
of childhood, the freedom generated by the 
outdoor gypsy life, the mischief-brewing pot, 
the mischievous implets that keep it boiling, 
the symbolic hat and broom, the frolicsome 
kitten, and then old Luna herself, who is 
renowned for infusing the minds of maids, 
both young and full grown, with a touch of 
madcap spirits." 1 

This test may be applied to any work of 
art, and will nearly always reveal the scope 
of the artist's ideal and his success in pre- 
senting it, so far as "unity in variety" is a 
mark of excellence. 

The arrangement of parts of any object 
that is to be viewed aesthetically falls natu- 
rally into three categories, which will now 
be considered in turn: 

I. Regularity and Rhythm. 

Regularity applies to things arranged in 
space, or to those which are alike in color and 
form, while rhythm pertains to movements 
in time. Windows in large public buildings 
are likely to be arranged in regular order. 
Soldiers are uniform in dress and equipment, 

1 See the author's "Art Appreciation.'* C. W. Bardeen, 
Syracuse, N. Y. 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 51 



and they are expected to move rhythmically. 
The "bones," or pieces of wood, that boys 
hold between their fingers and rattle, make a 
rhythmic sound, so do the sticks with which 
primitive people beat upon wood to make 
what they conceive to be music. This has 
been a prominent feature of the so-called 
music made by peoples in primitive stages of 
culture at all our great world expositions. 
Similar effects are produced in clog-dancing, 
in clapping "Juba" by the colored boys of the 
South, while all forms of dancing owe most 
of their charm to the rhythmic accord of the 
body to the time of the music. 

We find rhythm well marked in the recita- 
tion of poetry, the swing and beat of music, 
the periodic movement in the oration, the 
balance of word and clause and sentence in 
literary prose, the throb of the pulse, the 
regular exhaust of the locomotive, the pop- 
ping of the motorcycle, the movements of 
the legs and arms in walking or running, the 
inspiration and expiration of the breath, the 
alternate fixing and relaxing of the attention, 
and so on throughout the whole range of 
regular physical and mental movements. 

Just why regularity and rhythm please us, 
possibly we cannot tell precisely, though 



52 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 

some say they know. It will suffice, perhaps, 
if we recognize the fact that they do please. 
Cni.aren like to swing, they like rhythmical 
ditties, even those that are devoid of sense; 
youth likes to dance, to make or listen to 
reguiariy recurring sounds, while all get more 
or less pleasure from the beat of music or the 
rhythm of poetry. Dr. Harris 1 finds the ex- 
planation in the rhythmical movement of 
consciousness. This, he says, is the knowing 
of the self by the self. All art, he thinks, is 
self-perception and self-expression, which is 
not far from Dewey's idea that art is an ob- 
; ectifying in sensuous form of the emotion- 
churrea iaeas or ideals of man. 

Highly cultured races, though retaining 
their love of regularity and rhythm in many 
aspects of nature and art, transcend this 
principle by incorporating it with higher 
forms of artistic expression. Children and 
primitive people take what seems to the 
educated adult a strange pleasure in their 
manifestation, as may be seen in the examples 
already cited. 

While gratifying the primitive artistic 
instinct of children for these two forms of 

-See W. T. Harris, "Psyciclc-gic Feu.- cation of Educa- 
tion," pp. 353, 354.. D. Appleton a: Co., New York. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



aesthetic satisfaction as far as need be, it is 
of course incumbent upon the teacher to 
lead them to appreciate the higher forms in 
due time and order. 

The regular is found everywhere — in the 
arrangement of the books in the library, in 
buildings, in recurring elements in ornament, 
in placing of furniture and utensils, and of 
course constantly in the parts of flowers, 
grasses, trees, and the like. It should be seen 
and appreciated, but always valued in rela- 
tion to higher aspects of beauty. 

2. Symmetry and Balance. 

Symmetry is regularity with reversal. The 
two hands are alike, except that the order of 
thumb and fingers is reversed. The right 
glove will not fit the left hand. The same is 
true of ears, eyes, nostrils, cheeks, arms, 
legs, feet, ribs, etc. Not one of these would 
fit into the place of its brother on the 
other side. 

Try to read the time of day from the image 
of the face of a watch in the mirror. In the 
same way hold up before the mirror the 
right glove; the image if real would fit the 
left hand. So accustomed are we to seeing 
our face in the glass that we lose the sense of 



54 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



reversal; but let one try to use the razor or 
the shears upon the beard for the first time 
and one becomes acutely conscious that 
things are "turned around." Similarly, try to 
trace an irregular figure on paper from its 
image in the mirror. These experiments 
convince one very soundly of the fact that 
the images seen in a looking-glass are 
reversed. 

There is a difference, as Mach 1 points out, 
between vertical and horizontal symmetry. 
The letters d and b are vertically symmet- 
rical, but q and p horizontally. These re- 
lations can be seen better in the following 
order: 

d b 
q P 

Children confound d and b and q and p, 
but rarely d and q, or b and p. But d and b 
and q and p are the two halves of a vertically 
symmetrical figure, while d and q and b and p 
are two halves of a horizontally symmetrical 
figure. The reason the first two are so often 
confounded is that they produce similar 
sensations, whereas the latter, being hori- 
zontal, do not. Only one taught to see it 

1 See Ernst Mach, "Scientific Lectures," pp. 94, 95. Open 
Court Publishing Co., Chicago. 



/ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



perceives the symmetry between a tree and 
its image in water. 

The reason why we perceive one case of 
symmetry and not the other is, as Mach 
says, because our eyes themselves are ver- 
tically similar, each part of either retina 
corresponding to its opposite in the other, 
precisely as if the eyes had a set of symmet- 
rically arranged vision-fingers which receive 
similar but still symmetrically arranged 
stimuli. The left eye is like the reflection of 
the right, "and the light-feeling retina of the 
left eye is a reflection of the light-feeling 
retina of the right, in all its functions." 

Symmetry is of a higher aesthetic order 
than regularity, or mere repetition, for it at 
once introduces a variety which still comes to 
unity with its counterpart. Failure to find 
symmetry where it is customary gives an 
aesthetic shock to the sensibilities, as one 
may perceive when an eye, a hand, or a leg 
is wanting, or when, as is sometimes the case 
with one-handed laboring men, a hook takes 
the place of the lost hand. A cork leg or foot 
does not give distress to the observer, since 
its substance is concealed. The halting step 
is only a break in rhythm. 

Not only in bodies of men and animals do 



56 ^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



we find symmetry, but it is common and even 
inevitable in architecture, since the two sides 
of a carved doorway, for example, could not 
change places; it is found everywhere in 
furniture, in clothing which follows the 
symmetry of the body, in the form and 
arrangement of leaves, branches, parts of 
flowers, etc. 

Primitive art, rising above mere regularity, 
sometimes carries the principle of symmetry 
to absurd length as in idols, or images of 
gods. Two faces may be provided, one on 
the front and one on the back. Salarino 
exclaims: 

"Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature 
hath framed strange fellows in her time." 

Occasionally the arms in front are matched 
by a pair behind. Such objects are dis- 
pleasing to us, but it is an exaggerated sense 
of symmetry that produces them. 

The importance of symmetry in what is 
called balance may readily be seen. A man 
with only one arm is out of balance; so he 
would be had he two arms, each the same as 
the other, i.e., unsymmetrical, even though 
on opposite sides of the body. What is true 
of a man is true of a statue. If one arm is 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 57 



destroyed, the whole is thrown out of 
balance. It would be better to knock the 
other off too, as in Rodin's "Man Walking." 
The loss of the head in a statue is not so 
important from the standpoint of balance, 
since there is no other part symmetrical to 
it. This is seen in the ease with which we 
accustom ourselves to the view of the "Vic- 
tory of Samothrace." It is true both arms 
are missing, but this is a small matter, since 
the wings remain to restore the balance. 
Were one of these also missing as well as 
the arms, it would require distinct effort to 
ignore the lack. An orator who should make 
all his gestures with one hand, the other 
hanging inert or placed in some unnatural 
position, would appear as unbalanced as a 
one-armed man. In decorative design, sym- 
metry is a prominent means for securing 
balance, as where one scroll is set over against 
another, its symmetrical counterpart. Paint- 
ing makes use of the same principle. Thus, 
if two flower-girls are to appear, a more 
symmetrical balance is secured by having 
one hold her flower-basket on the right arm, 
the other on the left, than would be secured 
by a simple balance of position, the basket 
in each case hanging from the same arm. 



58 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Branches of trees, and leaves on the stem 
are also balanced by symmetrical arrange- 
ment. 

The reason why the clipping of ears and 
tail on dogs is not more repulsive is that the 
ears still remain in symmetrical balance after 
mutilation, and the tail has no symmetrical 
counterpart. 

Balance can of course be attained without 
the aid of symmetry, as in the grouping of 
windows, the balancing of one sentence, 
phrase, or word, with another; in the position 
of tree clumps upon the lawn, or in the bal- 
ancing of one object over against another of 
a different character in a picture. This is 
balance through mere regularity. 

3. Harmony and Grace. 

There is a higher principle of beauty in 
the arrangement and adaptation of parts 
than the somewhat mechanical ones of reg- 
ularity and rhythm, and of symmetry and 
balance. These are good and even indis- 
pensable in their place, but they are not the 
highest, since they lack in large measure the 
idea of adaptation to purpose. 

Harmony subordinates regularity and sym- 
metry, for, while they are retained, they are 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 59 



adapted to the functions they are to perform. 
The fingers are longer than the toes, the hands 
are larger than the ears and these than the 
eyes. One admires the trunk of the elephant 
because he has a good use for it, but an elon- 
gated proboscis in an animal having no use 
for such an organ would seem absurd, gro- 
tesque, and even ugly. Moreover, though the 
hands and arms are symmetrical they may 
be represented in different attitudes when the 
accomplishment of a given result necessitates 
such change. Thus, a violinist uses one hand 
to hold and move the bow, but with the other 
he fingers the strings. The symmetrical use 
of the two hands is better preserved by the 
pianist. In chopping wood one hand grasps 
the curved and enlarged end of the axe-handle 
while the other is free to slide in and out at 
the different stages of the stroke. The whole 
human body is free to arrange its several 
parts in poses, or in changing relations in 
accordance with any thought, design, or 
purpose the mind may form. Dejection, 
modesty, hope, fear, triumph, defiance, in 
short, any mental state, may be adequately 
represented by the harmonious arrangement 
of body, head, and limbs, together with the 
corresponding expression of the countenance. 



6o ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



The essence of harmony is found in the 
agreement that exists between the direct- 
ing mind and the bodily organs that con- 
form to the direction. King Henry admon- 
ishes his soldiers to disguise their customary 
nature with hard-favored rage, to stiffen the 
sinews, to lend the eye a terrible aspect, to 
imitate the action of the tiger, to set the 
teeth, stretch the nostrils wide, and to bend 
up every spirit to his full height; in short, to 
adapt every organ of the body to the demonic 
purpose of the mind when about to engage in 
mortal combat. This is harmony, but it is 
too terrible to be graceful. 

Harmony and grace attain their greatest 
perfection in the human body and in its 
representations, for there is a wide variety 
in the parts of the organism to be brought to 
unity in posture and action, while the aspects 
of thought and emotion to be expressed are 
numerous in kind and infinite in variety. 
Furthermore, the meaning to be expressed is 
immediate and vivid, and is touched with 
emotions that all can understand and which 
most can feel in similar situations, whether 
these situations be real or imaginary. 

The Greeks were perhaps the first to feel 
and express this harmony and grace in their 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 61 



statuary. At least they were the most 
preeminent of mankind in the quantity and 
quality of their artistic productions in this 
field. Grace results from the perfect equipoise 
of mind and body, when the mind is not 
losing itself in passion or violence, but is 
serene yet forceful, even in quiescence. The 
soul then fills the body with self-controlling 
energy, which finds its adequate expression 
in face, trunk, and limbs. 

An example of quiescent grace is found in 
the Dorian girl clasping her cloak, usually 
kno'^n as the "Diana of Gabii in Latium." 
It has all the attributes of graceful repose 
ready to spring into action. The right hand 
holds the brooch on the shoulder with thumb 
and finger, while the left grasps loosely the 
ends of the mantle to be fastened. The 
right foot supports the body, while the left 
is so placed as to suggest the easy preserva- 
tion of equilibrium or a preparation to ad- 
vance. The head is delicately poised as if 
awaiting the sound of the horn that shall 
announce the coming chase. Her garments 
hang in becoming folds, which, while cloth- 
ing the form, reveal here and there the 
smooth curves of the perfect body. We see 
also the shell-like ear, the charming waves 



62 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



of the hair with its slender fillet, and the 
graceful curves of fingers, arms, and bosom. 

Another illustration, much more vivid, is 
the far-famed and much-loved "Aphrodite 
(Venus) of Milos." Though both arms are 
missing, this statue must still be regarded as 
the masterpiece of Greek art in the expression 
of serene loveliness of form and feature, of 
sovereignty that has not lost its sweetness. 
As the figure of Aphrodite stands alone and 
flooded with light in the Louvre, before the 
red draperies that form its background, one 
feels that he beholds the most perfect example 
of harmony and grace in marble ever vouch- 
safed to the sight of man. 

In the "Victory of Samothrace" we have 
an example of grace in a statue, not in repose 
but animated and exultant. This goddess of 
victory has alighted upon the prow of a 
Macedonian flagship after a victorious naval 
battle against Ptolemy of Egypt. The head 
and arms are indeed lost, but the wings 
remain. Here we find grace triumphant, 
rather than quiescent. In every aspect of 
the poise of the body, even in the very wind- 
blown folds of the drapery, we find the com- 
plete expression of exultation, the sense of 
being the bearer of good news concerning 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 63 



the triumph of the Greeks over their own 
fears and the valor of their enemies. 

The modern world seeks indeed for har- 
mony and grace, though it does not always 
find them. Articles of furniture do not always 
harmonize with one another, but are often 
mixed in inextricable confusion. Mahogany 
alongside mission, oak against wicker, and 
cane against gilt! The color-scheme of the 
wall may be inharmonious in itself or with 
furniture and carpet and woodwork. Few 
people have imagination enough to select 
articles indiscriminately and at different 
times, yet so that they shall be harmonious 
when assembled in one room; manifold are 
the inharmonies in dress, in music, and in 
poetry, while we have abundant man-made 
inharmonies in nature, as when fires or axes 
have been allowed to destroy forests, or 
electric-power plants to dry up waterfalls. 

In the living body, the complete domina- 
tion of the mind over the serving members 
brings comfort and satisfaction to the person 
himself and a sense of aesthetic enjoyment to 
the beholder. This is to be seen in its highest 
perfection in the artistic dance — "the poetry 
of motion," we say. But it is also quite as 
possible and doubtless more important in 



64 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



daily living. If one could perform the most 
menial tasks with such smoothness and grace 
as to awaken the aesthetic joy of the beholder 
and perhaps also of the performer, such 
labor would pass from the category of 
drudgery into that of art. 

Awkwardness results when the mind is too 
confused properly to direct the features, the 
trunk, the limbs, or the hands and feet, or 
where the body is so out of coordination with 
the nervous system as to be incapable of 
obeying the dictates of the thought. One of 
the best things about the Montessori system 
is the training it gives in the coordination of 
muscle and nerve, enabling the little ones to 
use their fingers deftly, to walk securely and 
gracefully, either up and down stairs or upon 
the floor or the ground, and to carry a dish 
filled with liquid without breaking the one or 
spilling the other. The dance is doubtless 
the most successful means for many aspects 
of physical training, as it leads away from 
awkwardness and toward grace. But mental 
training is equally important, for he who has 
complete possession of his mind in a given 
situation can hardly be awkward in it. 
Only when the mind is placed in new and 
perhaps embarrassing situations does awk- 



/ESTHETIC EDUCATION 65 



wardness result. The jaunty grace of Whit- 
tier's "Barefoot Boy" when he is at his play 
or in familiar occupations may give way to 
constraint of body and mind under new and 
surprising circumstances which bring about 
confusion and self-consciousness. 

Most adolescents, when rapidly growing, 
are more or less subject to embarrassment 
because of awkwardness. Two dangers 
should be avoided — arrested development of 
mental and physical coordination on the one 
hand, and on the other the precocious acqui- 
sition of the graces of polite society. 



CHAPTER VII 



B. FORMAL ORDERS OF BEAUTY 

IT IS to Von Hartmann that we owe a 
clear exposition of the gradual transition 
from that which is sensuously pleasing, 
though mostly devoid of meaning, as, for 
example, from a mere patch of color, up to 
that which plainly embodies in concrete indi- 
vidual form a definite content of thought, 
idea, or significance, as the "Apollo Belvi- 
dere" or the "Sistine Madonna." Though 
these distinctions may cross those of the 
ancients in their exposition of unity in vari- 
ety, as may be seen when color or tone har- 
monies are considered, yet these stages offer 
so much pedagogical advantage both to 
teacher and pupil in the appreciation of 
the beautiful that they are unhesitatingly 
presented. 

According to Von Hartmann there are six 
more or less distinctly marked planes of 
formal beauty, or stages of approach to the 
full concrete aesthetic embodiment of plainly 
perceptible meaning. Not only do these 
planes exist of themselves, but they form 
(66) 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 67 



indispensable elements when the beauty of 
any object, however meaningful, is analyzed. 
It may be questioned in the beginning, as 
suggested by Bosanquet, 1 whether any aes- 
thetic feeling whatever is not at least dimly 
related to the significant. "The merest germ 
of the sense of beauty seems to imply a 
distinction between stimulus and signifi- 
cance." 

Von Hartmann's Six Stages of Formal 
Beauty will now be considered in turn: 

I. THE SENSUOUS AS SUCH 

If one may distinguish between what is 
merely sensuously agreeable and that which 
is also aesthetically agreeable, one would say 
regarding smells, for instance, that not 
merely the fragrance of the rose, but this 
fragrance when associated with pleasing 
experience of life, real or imaginary, is 
aesthetically pleasing. Similarly we may think 
of the poet's description of the smell of the 
roses hanging about the broken or shattered 
vase, the smell of the salt sea, the faint odor 
of wood or peat smoke about an open fire, 

1 "History of itsthetic," p. 8. The Macmillan Company, 
New York. 



68 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



of newly plowed earth, etc. The agreeable- 
ness of the smell of broiling steak to a hungry 
man is hardly aesthetic, unless perchance it 
calls up visions of smiling faces about the 
festal board and is suggestive of emotions 
other than those of hunger. 

The sense of touch also gives rise to aes- 
thetic pleasures, as the velvety touch of the 
gown, or the petals of a flower, the softness 
of fur, the smoothness of highly polished 
furniture; whereas the agreeable roughness 
of the bath towel after a cold bath is not 
to be regarded as aesthetic, but as purely 
physical. 

What is true of smell and touch is equally 
true of sound. Even very simple sounds may 
be aesthetically pleasing, and their aesthetic 
value seems to depend upon the closeness of 
their association to the significant in nature 
or in life. A single note from a bird may 
suggest the mate, the nest, the fledglings, 
and all their beautiful surroundings. The 
more tones vary and yet harmonize, the 
greater aesthetic pleasure they are capable 
of giving, though just why some combi- 
nations please while others offend is not so 
clear. 

The most obvious sense impressions that 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 69 



arouse aesthetic emotions, even when only 
remotely connected with the significant, is 
seen in colors and their various combinations. 
A sunrise or a sunset, the blue of the sky, the 
shifting colors of the ocean, and the infinitely 
varied colors in a landscape are all sources of 
aesthetic pleasure. 

Suggestions of the aesthetic value of the 
colors red, blue and yellow are contained in 
the following verses. Color harmonies might 
be described in like manner. 

RED 

(Sonnet) 

The garnet's deep clear red in fire-light play, 
The ruby's bright and flashing gleam, beside, 
The red hearth-fire, where mirth and love abide, 
Compete with reds in autumn's rich array. 
Far shine the reds at sea that mark the way — 
The beacon lamps, the larboard lights that glide, 
But most the blood-red sun that all the tide 
Incarnadines and, setting, ends the day. 
O rare the flush on sky in morning light, 
With streaming crimson bands spread wide and high, 
And rarer yet at eventide the sight 
When glowing clouds adorn the western sky! 
But heaven's great bow has red of brightest hue, 
When past the clouds and rain the sun breaks 
through. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



BLUE 

There's plentiful blue amidst all the green; 
For blue are the jays that chatter and preen, 
The bluebells all sway by breezes caressed, 
Blue-tinged are the hills that border the scene, 
And bluebirds watch over the young in the nest. 

In the woods of the North 
Where the heart loves to be, 
O'er the blue on the ground 
Flits the blue in the tree. 

O'er waters of blue where soft breezes blow, 
With sunlight above and shadow below, 
My boat sails the bay, with naught to annoy, 
For two that I love sit close as we go, 
With laughing blue eyes that mirror my joy. 

Far away to the South, 
Where the warm tropics lie, 
There the blue of the sea 
Is the blue of the sky. 

YELLOW 

Yellow of blossoms that come in the spring, 
Yellow of sunlight that autumn days bring, 
Yellow the corn and yellow the sheaves, 
Goldenrod yellow, and yellow the leaves; 
Landscape through haze, when apples are mellow, 
Over the earth a mantle of yellow! 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Brightest of yellow that ever was seen 
Blended with blue is mother of green, 
Mother of orange when mingled with red; 
But orange or green, though fair, be it said, 
Never for cheer can rank as her fellow; 
Queen of all colors, the color of yellow! 

We delight in the mere flash of the dia- 
mond, the mimic fires and sparkling greens 
and blues of the opal, the sheen of silver and 
nickel and gold, the lustrous gray of alu- 
minum, as well as in the glories of color with 
all its tints and shades that are found in 
textiles, and in all their color harmonies. 

It would be a mistake to assume that color 
is of value only as it appears in painting and 
in nature. It is of inestimable aesthetic 
worth in daily living, for it affects dress in 
all its aspects, as well as the color harmonies 
of walls and furniture in the various rooms of 
the house, the dishes and foods upon the 
table, and the outdoor colors of buildings, 
walks, flower-beds, foliage, and the like. 
Some aesthetic joys are the possession of 
wealth, such as arise from costly works of 
art in the home, but color itself belongs to 
all, and the pleasures of color are to be had 
through training in the power of appreci- 
ation and in the production of color effects, 



72 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



for one color costs no more than another. 
Nature's gifts are for all who have eyes to 
see, while it is to the colors of nature that all 
artists resort for inspiration and instruction. 

He who teaches children to see two beau- 
tiful colors where they saw but one before, 
or perhaps none at all, is a benefactor of the 
race, for he adds to the possession of men 
treasures to be had without money and 
without price. 

II. THE MATHEMATICAL (PROPORTION) 

This category enables us to know how and 
where to look for beauty in a multitude of 
things now regarded as of inferior aesthetic 
worth, or as having no aesthetic value at all. 
Can there be any beauty in a tool, a machine, 
a piece of furniture, a dish, or a dwelling- 
house aside from its sensuous attributes 
already mentioned? Most assuredly, and the 
beauty that arises from proportion in con- 
nection with the idea of function is far too 
important to be overlooked. 

What constitutes a good piece of archi- 
tecture? Not material alone, although this 
is important as giving the sense of perma- 
nence and as furnishing agreeable masses of 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



color; certainly not mere adornment, for this 
if not well balanced and intimately related to 
function is grotesque or absurd; but propor- 
tion, — proportion of length to breadth and 
to height, — proportion in number, arrange- 
ment, and form and size of openings; of roof 
and eaves to walls; of chimneys and towers 
and pinnacles and projections and depres- 
sions, to one another and to the whole — it is 
these proportions above all, when har- 
monious, that render a structure a true piece 
of architecture, and it is in these effects, 
when the form is appropriate to the function, 
that we find our aesthetic satisfaction. Not 
only must the parts of a piece of architecture 
be in faultless proportion with one another, 
but the structure as a whole should be in 
harmony with its surroundings. Much archi- 
tecture, good in itself, is spoiled by the 
erection of other buildings not in harmony 
with it in its neighborhood. Even Trinity 
Church or the old City Hall in New York 
do not look well flanked by "sky-scrapers." 
Houses that are appropriate in the hills or 
mountains may not harmonize with their 
surroundings if erected in flat countries, just 
as structures suitable in the tropics are very 
unsuitable in northern regions. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Architecture, however, has long ranked as 
a fine art. It is when we come to the mechan- 
ical world so closely associated with the useful 
arts, that we find what may almost be called 
an undiscovered aesthetic realm, namely the 
realm of tools and machines and their prod- 
ucts. Doubtless the reason why the aesthetic 
values that such objects possess are so gen- 
erally overlooked is that people have become 
accustomed to look for beauty only at second 
hand, and in such representations as hang on 
walls or adorn the public museums or com- 
prise private "what-not" collections. More- 
over, most observers have never been taught 
to look for that which really constitutes the 
beauty of manufactured articles. Lacking 
the gaud of color and the striking meanings 
that go with forms which portray human 
destiny or passion, tools and machines are 
regarded as mere commonplaces, perhaps not 
ungainly, but at all events aesthetically in- 
different. The beauty of such objects lies in 
the perfection of their proportions when 
considered in connection with the functions 
to be performed. Color and polish and dec- 
oration are mere accessories, which may or 
may not enhance their aesthetic quality. It is 
sometimes thought that to make the legs of a 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



table beautiful they must be twisted, curved, 
or carved, but whoever thinks this is looking 
for beauty in the wrong thing, in mere gro- 
tesque adornment, and he overlooks what is 
of most importance, the sense of balanced 
proportion with respect to function. 

It is now proposed to maintain the fol- 
lowing 

THESIS 

There is an actual, possibly a necessary, 
correlation between mechanical efficiency and 
aesthetic proportion. In other words, as a 
tool or a machine increases in all-round 
efficiency there is a corresponding increase 
in the aesthetic quality oj its proportions. 



To exemplify this proposition adequately 
it is necessary to distinguish between those 
tools and implements that have small inner 
development in complexity of function, and 
those machines that show increase in the 
number and complexity of operations. 

i. Tools and Utensils. 

(i) The axe (Fig. i) has simple functions 
which have remained almost unchanged, 
yet it has become more and more efficient 



76 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



as it has developed from the simple iron 
wedge of our forefathers, with its round, 
straight handle. Today the American axe 
is unquestionably the most beautiful in 
existence, and it is in all probability the most 
efficient, though this fact has perhaps not 
been demonstrated in accordance with the 
rules of scientific procedure. What has been 
called the greatest athletic feat ever per- 
formed by the human race has been the 
clearing of the forests from the greater part 
of the American continent. This process has 
been going on for some four hundred years. 
The refinement of the axe as a cutting tool 
has proceeded slowly but surely all this 
time. Theory, accident, and experience have 
stood beside the smith as he has forged the 
blade, the head, and the eye of the axe. The 
same forces have influenced the makers of 
the handle as they have selected the hickory, 
have shaped it in the rough with axe and 
drawing knife, and finished it by the open 
fireside with knife and sandpaper and broken 
glass. From a straight, round stick it has 
become what we see, a gracefully curving 
handle, flat enough to enable the woodsman 
to hold the blade true, large enough to fit the 
hand comfortably, enlarged sufficiently at the 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 77 



end to make sure the grasp yet be no bar to 
the comfort of the user, and curved enough 
to secure the maximum of ease and vigor of 
stroke. The whole constitutes a balanced 
perfection which is as beautiful in its pro- 
portion as it is efficient in its action. The 
edge of the blade rounds gently at its ex- 
tremities for ease of entrance to the wood and 
recovery from it; above these rounded ends 
of the cutting edge, the blade is made some- 
what thinner front and back than through 
the body of the wedge and for a similar rea- 
son, namely, that there may be greater pene- 
tration and less binding upon recovery for 
the next stroke. The head is just massive 
enough to balance the blade, and is either 
made square for striking a non-penetrating 
blow, or is gently rounded as seen in the 
illustration. 

(2) The monkey-wrench and the Stillson 
wrench (Fig. 1) are different in function, and 
hence in shape, yet both are highly efficient 
and at the same time of agreeable form. 
The adjustable jaws of the monkey-wrench 
are in general rectangular except as they 
slope toward the end. The inner jaw at the 
back is slightly shorter than the outer one, 
or the head, that it may be less in the way. 



78 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



The corners of the hammer part of the head 
are rounded somewhat, that they may not 
catch or mar. The screw that moves the 
adjustable jaw has its seat on a projection on 
the handle that serves at the same time as a 
guard for the hand. The purpose of this tool 
is to turn rectangular or other straight-faced 
nuts, and it is perfectly adapted for heavy 
work. The handle is long enough to give a 
good leverage, while the combined wood and 
metal of the grip give lightness and strength 
to the tool, and comfort to the hand. 

The Stillson wrench is designed for an 
adjustable grip upon round pipe, hence the 
rounded head, which must neither catch nor 
mar. But in this case the movable jaw is 
subjected to much greater strain than that 
in the monkey-wrench, while at the same time 
it must not be rigid, but movable, in order to 
get and keep a tightening grip upon the pipe. 
This necessitates the abrupt ending of the 
threaded shank of the movable jaw, yet the 
distribution of mass is not aesthetically un- 
pleasing, especially when the jaws are opened 
somewhat. Though neither of these tools was 
designed as an object of beauty, yet both 
show great strength and efficiency combined 
with good proportions, and with rounding 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



surfaces where these contribute to the work- 
ing value of the whole. 

A comparison of these tools as now per- 
fected with the clumsier ones of an earlier day 
will convince the observer that beauty of 
proportion accompanies increase in efficiency. 

(3) The Saw. — The saw, like the axe, has 
had a gradual development both in efficiency 
and refinement of form. From a crude piece 
of thin metal with a notched edge and a rough 
handle it has become the well-balanced beau- 
tiful and efficient tool represented in Fig. 1. 
It is long enough to give a full stroke to the 
arm, with a gradually increasing breadth 
which permits a very thin blade to be free 
from the danger of "buckling" when ob- 
stacles, like knots, are encountered and great 
force is exerted to overcome them. This pro- 
gressive width takes the form of a gentle 
curve, which is the natural outline for steadily 
increasing strength, and which is also, when 
not arbitrary, a line of beauty. The heel of 
the saw is gently rounded, not merely to 
make it pretty, but to prevent catching and 
the consequent marring of material. The 
curve of the back having a legitimate function 
enhances the beauty of the blade. The handle 
is well-nigh perfect in fulfilling its purpose, 



8o ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



for it gives an ample grip both in dimension 
and direction, protects the hand above and 
below and in front. The notch in the forward 
wall of the opening looks at first as if it were 
there for purely decorative purposes, but 
this is not altogether so, for trial shows that 
it gives needed space for the projecting 
knuckle of the middle finger. Neither is the 
curved outline on the forward part of the 
handle chiefly for decorative purposes, for 
the upper, middle and bottom projections 
are needed for the grip of the rivets on the 
blade and for the needed strength of the 
wood, while the two in-flowing curves reduce 
to its lowest terms the opposition that the 
handle offers to the passage of the full length 
of the sawing edge through the object that 
is being sawed. A few decorative features 
are present, but though they enhance slightly 
the beauty of the whole, they by no means 
make up its chief constituents. The blade 
is made of so-called "silver-steel," and this 
when unmarred by use or rust has a beauti- 
fully mottled appearance. The quarter-inch 
longitudinal tracing along the upper edge 
of the blade is also decorative, as is the slight 
carving on the handle, though a part of this 
is also useful; the larger head of the next to 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 81 



the lowest rivet is ornamental, though this 
also serves to bear the trade-mark of the 
maker, and it will endure long after that on 
the blade has been obliterated by use. 

A boy who uses such a saw should be 
enabled by aesthetic education to take daily 
delight in the enjoyment and the preservation 
of its beauty. 

(4) The Plane. — Compare the wood plane 
of our fathers with the more shapely iron 
plane of today. The former is a long block 
of wood pierced for the soft iron blade with 
its steel edge. This is held in place by a 
wooden wedge, and must be pounded down 
to its proper position, and pounded sidewise 
to make it cut equally on either side. The 
handle is crude, and raised too far above the 
cutting edge. The tool was fairly efficient 
and is not ill -looking. The iron plane, 
on the other hand, is far more graceful in 
outline, and more efficient in use. The blades 
are mechanically adjusted and held in place 
by a shapely iron wedge automatically set. 
The curved finger at its top is not a decora- 
tion, however decorative in effect it may be, 
but is an automatic lever that holds the blades 
in place. It is curved over at the top to be 
out of the way. The adjusting screw behind 



82 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



the blades occupies a space not otherwise 
needed and gives neatness and a bit of color 
to that part of the plane. The handle is set 
low, as it should be, and furnishes a better 
support for the hand that must do the hard 
work. The curve of the sides is not for 
prettiness, but is high in the middle forward 
part to hold the blades firm, while it descends 
on either end to give room for the hands. The 
bottom is corrugated that the metal may not 
stick to the wood over which it passes. 

(5) The Brace and Bit. — We find here an 
admirable illustration of the proposition that 
increase of efficiency in the performance of 
function carries with it a correlative increase 
in aesthetic proportion. The brace still uni- 
versally offered in the hardware stores is one 
that is fitted to take a bit with a tapering 
four-sided head on the shank. To accommo- 
date such a bit the head of the brace must 
either be enlarged to hold the jaws, or else 
the jaws be made to project beyond the head 
of the brace, thus producing an unsightly 
appearance. Moreover, even with the best 
of gripping appliances on the market, it is 
difficult to make the bit stay in a line 
straight with the head of the brace. The re- 
sult is that only a very skillful hand can bore 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 83 



a hole at right angles to the plane of the 
surface of the wood. 

The new brace, however, as shown in 
Fig. 1, receives the perfectly straight and 
cylindrical shaft of the bit. This shaft has a 
slot in the end into which the mechanism 
in the head of the brace fits a corresponding 
blade or driver. The result is a far more 
handsome head for the brace, and an auto- 
matically adjusted alignment of the bit. With 
such a tool it is easy, because natural, to bore 
a hole at right angles to the face of the wood. 
Some of the old models of the brace had per- 
fectly symmetrical shafts to the crank of the 
brace, both being at right angles to the 
line of the bit. This was doubtless for the 
sake of the symmetry itself. The present bit, 
it will be observed, has the front shank 
of the crank at right angles to the shaft of 
the bit and the head of the brace, but the 
rear shaft is sloped back, the better to ac- 
commodate the arm. This is harmony, with 
respect to function, and is to be preferred 
aesthetically to the former symmetry, which 
is to some extent detrimental to function. 
As to the nickel-plating on the exposed metal 
of the brace, it may be said that it is at once 
decorative and useful, for it tends to make 



84 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



the tool more agreeable to work with, and of 
course prolongs its usefulness. 

(6) The Hammer. — Hammers are for many- 
purposes, and hence vary greatly in weight, 
size, and shape. The light domestic hammer 
shown in the cut is not, perhaps, the most 
beautiful, but it shows distinct advantages of 
efficiency and beauty over many of its prede- 
cessors. The curve of the claw is graceful, 
while its effectiveness as a nail-puller is un- 
questioned. Perhaps the greatest improve- 
ment in the modern hammer is the inward 
projection of the head to hold more firmly 
the handle, and to reinforce its strength, so 
that it cannot be so easily loosened or broken. 
This improvement contributes at once to 
beauty and to use. 

(7) The Guns. — The exhibit in Fig. 2 shows 
at the bottom two old flint-lock muskets, one, 
the lower, dating from the time of the Revo- 
lution, and the other from 18 12. They had 
a certain efficiency, being deadly at short 
range, and are better-looking than their pre- 
decessors, the fire-lock and the blunderbuss. 
The two guns above are modern high-power 
rifles, made more efficient by improvement 
in metal, the invention of the breech-loader, 
and the increased force of smokeless powder. 




Fig. 2. Flintlock and modern guns 




Fig. 3. Early automobile engine 




Fig. 4. Recent automobile engine 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 85 



While the musket had an effective range of 
say two hundred yards, the modern guns are 
effective at more than a thousand yards, and 
can be fired six or more times in as many 
seconds, while the old muzzle-loaders could 
be loaded and fired perhaps once a minute. 
The action of the modern guns, moreover, is 
instantaneous upon pulling the trigger, while 
in the flint-lock the gun had to be held 
steadily in place while the powder in the 
pan flashed and communicated the flame to 
the powder in the barrel of the gun. A lively 
duck could dodge a charge from a flint-lock 
after he saw the flash, but he would have no 
such power with a modern piece. Its only 
flash is that at the muzzle. 

There is no need to dwell upon the differ- 
ence in looks between the old gun and the 
new. The latter is the perfection of balance, 
grace of outline and beauty of finish, whereas 
the old one is not. 

2. Machines Having an Internal Development. 

Tools, as we have seen, have refinement, 
but, their function being simple, there is 
rarely any development in complexity of 
parts. A hammer is still a hammer, an axe 
an axe, a saw a saw, even after centuries of 



86 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



use; not so, however, a piece of machinery, 
say for reaping grain, for traction, for gene- 
rating or transmitting power, or for printing, 
sewing, planing, making bolts, screws, nails, 
and so following. 

A machine is submitted to three kinds of 
test: namely, for reliability, for capacity, and 
for efficiency. 

(1) Reliability. — May the machine be de- 
pended upon to do its work smoothly and 
without vexatious delays? Will a sewing- 
machine make its stitches with certainty, or 
is it always missing them, breaking thread, 
or failing to work at all? When men go out 
in their automobiles, can they be reasonably 
certain that they will reach their destination 
without delay, or return under their own 
power? Will a reaper or an automatic 
machine steadily continue to perform its 
functions until worn out? 

(2) Capacity. — How much work will the 
machine do in a given length of time? Will 
an automatic machine accomplish as much 
as could five, ten, one hundred, or one 
thousand men? How many miles an hour 
can a locomotive move under given con- 
ditions? How many bushels a day will this 
separator thresh? 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 87 



(3) Efficiency. — What per cent of the en- 
ergy applied in a machine reappears in work 
done? What per cent of the heat-value of 
coal is realized by a locomotive? Only from 
three to five per cent, perhaps. What part 
of the force inherent in falling water can be 
utilized by a turbine? A very large one, even 
to ninety per cent or more. 

The proposition here maintained is as 
follows: With every substantial increase in 
the general usefulness of a machine, as meas- 
ured by its reliability, capacity, and efficiency, 
there is a corresponding increase in beauty of 
proportion. 

There are several reasons for this fact. 
First of all may be mentioned the clumsiness 
that results from applying a new principle in 
an old way. Railroad cars, for example, were 
first made on the plan of the stage coach; 
automobile bodies only a few years ago were 
constructed with the horse carriage for a 
model; gas engines were made like steam- 
engines, type-setting machines were made to 
set and distribute type as if they were men, 
etc. Gradually, however, these unnecessary 
imitations are discarded, and the machine is 
so constructed as to be true to its own nature 
and functions. Then it is simplified, and 



88 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



made more reliable and efficient, and reaches 
its maximum capacity. At this stage it is 
most beautiful. The string of stage-coaches 
becomes a Pullman car, the horseless carriage 
becomes a modern automobile body with 
straight -line construction, and the auto- 
mobile engine a thing of beauty, as well as a 
well-nigh perfect machine of its kind. Per- 
haps the next most important reason for this 
improvement is the gradual disappearance 
of those forms of decoration that add nothing 
to the general usefulness of the machine, 
such as gaudy colors, meaningless and hence 
useless curves, twists, protuberances, and the 
like. The first Remington typewriter stands 
before me. It is adorned with roses, wreaths, 
and portraits of pretty girls. At present, 
however, all these elegancies are represented 
in the operator, while the machine has shed 
these excrescences. It is now finished plainly 
with colors and materials that best promote 
durability. The beauty of the new typewriter 
is not to be found in decorative externals, 
but in harmony of proportions with respect 
to the functions to be performed. The old 
machine used a long lever and a string to 
shift the receiving cylinder! Strings and 
roses! They do not go well together. 




Fig. 5. Puffing Billy, Invicta, and modern passenger 
locomotive 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 89 



The correlation between beauty of pro- 
portion and mechanical efficiency in ma- 
chinery may be further illustrated by loco- 
motives and automobile engines. 

(a) Locomotives. — The early forms of loco- 
motives seem to us grotesque, but they are no 
more ugly than they were inefficient. This 
is easy to see in "Puffing Billy" of 1813, or 
"Invicta" of 1830. By 1837, the English 
"Hercules" begins to assume something of 
the form of the present locomotive, though 
still crude. In Fig. 6 is seen the locomotive 
of our Civil War days, the "Woodford" of 
1862. The big, flaring smoke-stack is a 
characteristic of that period. It is not so 
much pictorially as functionally inadequate 
and ugly, for it serves as a sort of balance to 
the cab at the other end of the boiler. The 
forced draught, however, caused by the ex- 
haust steam from the cylinders, makes this 
great flaring stack quite unnecessary, and 
hence aesthetically incorrect. Besides, as 
locomotives have become larger, there is not 
so much room under bridges for high smoke- 
stacks. Fig. 7 shows a giant freighter, built 
by the Baldwin Locomotive Company for the 
Northwestern Railroad. It has two sets of 
drive-wheels, and seems the very embodi- 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



ment of power. Though not perhaps so 
attractive to the eye as the lighter passenger 
engine, it is yet a model of clean-cut straight- 
line construction, where the highest utility 
corresponds to the greatest beauty of pro- 
portion. It contains no ornament except the 
finish that contributes to utility. 

(b) The Automobile Engine. — This engine 
(Figs. 3 and 4) is convincing as a verification 
of the truth of the proposition that there is 
a correlation between efficiency and beauty, 
for it has been developed in the dark, so to 
speak, since it has always been covered by a 
hood. Who cares much how it looks, if it is 
to remain hidden, provided only it does its 
work and achieves reliability, capacity and 
efficiency? Its present beauty, and to one 
with an eye for proportion it has this in high 
degree, can hardly have been a distinct aim 
of the designer, though every artist-artisan 
delights to make beautiful objects, but must 
have been a natural result of that simplicity 
of construction that conduces at once to 
efficiency and beauty. Else why was the 
automobile engine so crude, unreliable, in- 
efficient and ugly then; and why is it so 
refined, reliable, efficient and beautiful now? 

(c) Other Examples. — These may be found 



^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



and analyzed on every hand — the sewing- 
machine, washing-machines, the piano, organ 
or graphophone, fire-arms, cartridges, all 
kinds of motors, plows, harvesters, threshing 
machines, automobile bodies, wagons, car- 
riages, corn -planters, linotype machines, 
printing presses, and a host of automatic or 
semi-automatic machines in factories. 

3. Fashion vs. Art. 

Fashion or art, which? Must we choose 
between them, or may we retain both, fash- 
ion being modified by art, or art directed by 
fashion? 

An answer to these questions is most im- 
portant in matters of clothing, furniture, 
tableware, and articles of household deco- 
ration, such as wall-papers, rugs, carpets, 
and the like, and perhaps in domestic archi- 
tecture; but less so in the other fine arts, 
which are not so much influenced by fashion. 

It should first be remarked that there has 
been a well-marked evolution in dress and 
furniture, not to speak of that in the fine 
arts, which has followed pretty closely the 
stages in the development of types of thought 
and social consciousness. This evolution has, 
doubtless, like evolution in the natural world, 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



been more or less closely associated with the 
requisites for survival on the one hand, and 
with natural fitness and convenience on the 
other. If men wear trousers and women 
skirts, it may be assumed that there are good 
reasons why they should, and it would be 
foolish to expect that merely aesthetic consid- 
erations will ever change these customs. If 
the plume still adorns the left side of a sol- 
dier's head-dress, it is doubtless because on 
the right side it would hinder the free play of 
the sword. Its place on the left side being 
once established, there would seem to be no 
good reason why it should be transferred to 
the right, even if the soldier is to use a gun 
instead of a sword. 

But within the stages of this natural 
evolution there is much room for varieties of 
form, material and color; and it is here that 
fashion rages or reigns as the case may be. 
Our anthropologists tell us that decoration, 
as by tattooing or the wearing of ornaments, 
arose from the desire to improve on nature, 
and serves as a means of distinguishing one 
naked savage from another, or to enhance 
the attractiveness of the individual or to lend 
him distinction. The Seminole women of 
Florida, as one sees them on the streets of 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Miami today, wear around the neck a band of 
beads that reaches from the tip of the chin to 
the breast-bone. Herbert Spencer's 1 jibe at 
English fashionable education in i860, was 
that, like savage decorations on a body other- 
wise naked, it was pursued solely for orna- 
mentation, and to follow the fashion. 

Spencer also asserts that the leading mo- 
tives for following the fashion are two: (1) 
Respect or reverence for the person imitated, 
as a king, a courtier, a queen or lady's maid, 
a general or a statesman; and (2) desire to 
assert equality with him. One would pre- 
sumably feel somewhat like a king if dressed 
like one, as on the stage, or like a gentleman 
if he wore a gentleman's garb. The maid 
asserts her equality with her mistress by 
imitating her hats and gloves, and the style 
of her dresses. 

Fashions at times go to great extremes, as 
in the largeness or the smallness of hats, 
sleeves and skirts. At such times they are 
likely to fall under the condemnation of 
those who for one reason or another consider 
themselves the guardians of public morals. 
The clergy occasionally fulminate against 
the extremes of dress, and once in a while 

1 "Education," beginning of Chapter I. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



some legislator attempts to enact a law on 
the subject. Such efforts are perhaps more 
laudable in intention than effective in exe- 
cution. A Berlin street-car conductor had 
an eye put out by a long hat-pin, and now 
an ordinance restricts the length of these 
pins and prescribes buttons for the sharp 
ends like buttons at the points of fencing- 
foils. One man declares that long feathers 
tickle everybody in their neighborhood, and 
demands remedial legislation! For a very 
good reason theater-goers expect women to 
doff their hats, especially if they are large, 
during the performance. 

At times, obnoxious fashions have been 
abandoned because of some public display 
that shed obloquy upon the followers, as 
when a hangman was dressed in the offend- 
ing garb, or the victim was executed in it. 
But it may safely be asserted that an ounce 
of ridicule in such matters is better than a 
pound of denunciation. If the fashion can 
be shown to make its followers ridiculous or 
ugly, it will be short-lived. 

Since fashion is deep-rooted in the social 
evolution of the race, and is not to be wholly 
abolished either by fulmination or ridicule, it 
remains to be asked, what can chasten and 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 95 



ennoble it? The answer is — art. Though fash- 
ions come and fashions go, art must remain. 
This means that every garb must be aestheti- 
cally adapted to the offices it is to perform, 
and that always it must harmonize with the 
personality of the wearer in its texture, 
finish, form and color. ^Esthetically con- 
sidered, a nurse's gown may be as becoming 
as a ball dress, though it would hardly do to 
exchange the two, except perhaps in a mas- 
querade. Art always takes into consideration 
time, place and circumstance. A hunter's 
outfit, though highly becoming in the forest, 
would look out of place at a social "function" 
in the city. 

It is said that American women of our 
wealthier class are the best-dressed women 
in the world; the reason being that more than 
any others they modify fashion to meet the 
varying artistic needs of the individual. 
Whether true or not, this is good enough to 
be true. At all events, the aesthetic educa- 
tion given in the schools should endeavor to 
develop taste and general aesthetic apprecia- 
tion to a point where they will tend to bring 
about just this condition of things. If a 
prevailing style of hat is unbecoming, making 
the figure look "dumpy," for instance, it 



96 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



should be ruthlessly discarded. The com- 
mercial interest that produced it will be 
quickly impelled to offer what is suitable 
for this type of individual. What, in general, 
holds as to form, holds to a far greater 
degree of color. In central Africa, where all 
complexions are black, art might succeed 
once for all in determining the aesthetic com- 
binations of color that would fit all; but in 
a country like ours, where it is difficult to 
make any two complexions match, such a 
thing is an evident impossibility. The whole 
gamut of hues, tints, shades, and chroma 
must be brought into play. The almost 
infinite combinations of color find ample 
scope for application. Our pupils must, 
therefore, be trained most thoroughly in this 
department of aesthetics. 

III. THE DYNAMIC 

Dr. Harris says that in Greek art when 
the form is equal to the content we have 
beauty. This is always true, provided the 
content is one capable of exciting aesthetic 
emotion. The frailest, airiest lyric may be 
beautiful; so is the stately Hebrew poetry 
that exalts the Creator. A tiny bit of bric-a- 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 97 



brae may be so exquisitely executed as to 
call forth exclamations of delight; or a 
statue by Michael Angelo may represent the 
currents of life passing into the newly created 
body of Adam when touched by the finger of 
the Almighty. We have seen two leading 
elements of the beautiful, namely, the sen- 
suous as such, and the harmonies of pro- 
portion. A third element, the dynamic, is 
now to be considered. 

The word dynamic suggests force in action. 
This alone might not produce aesthetic feel- 
ing, but in combination with other elements 
is capable of doing so, or at least it is capable 
of heightening the aesthetic effect. In some 
cases it may border on the sublime, especially 
when it produces awe or fear, as in the thun- 
derings of Niagara, or the amazing forces at 
work in a tornado or a storm at sea. 

Look for a moment again at the picture of 
the freight locomotive and see what power 
is suggested by its two sets of cylinders, its 
two sets of drive-wheels, sixteen in all, its 
enormous weight, and its corresponding 
capacity for producing steam; or imagine 
this tremendous engine in action, with its 
seemingly interminable train of laden cars. 
Without the idea of force actively employed, 

G 



98 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



the locomotive would no longer excite any 
interest at all, except perhaps from its fitness 
for the junk-heap. The same is true of the 
mighty steamship that plows the waves, the 
great cranes to be found in steel works, 
capable of lifting tons of iron bars as if they 
were feathers, the giant gates in the locks 
of the Panama Canal. On a smaller scale, 
nature presents similar phenomena. The 
active strength of the lion, the tiger, the 
grizzly bear, the elephant in the jungle, or 
the great python in the tropical forest, excites 
in us what Byron called "a pleasing fear," 
which is only the poet's expression for the 
effect of the dynamic. In a noble, well- 
trained horse, the strength found in muscle 
and bone awaken our admiration, but without 
the element of fear. We admire the athlete 
for what he can do, as much as for the sym- 
metry and grace of his form. If his fine 
physique gave him no dynamic power, our 
aesthetic appreciation of him would sink to 
a much lower point. 

Even a mountain may be thought of 
dynamically, as when it is regarded as the 
source of glaciers, rivers, forests, avalanches, 
floods, etc. One of the charms of the river 
lies in its resistless onward sweep to the 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



ocean, its power to further the ends of man, 
or, if he violates its laws, to engulf him in its 
depths. 

IV. DECORATION 

This is what Von Hartmann calls the 
passively teleological, by which he doubtless 
means that element of beauty which con- 
tributes to the expression of thought or 
function, but is not actually necessary to it. 
Observe again the carved scroll on the handle 
of the saw (Fig. i). Though the part of it 
that the fingers close over may increase the 
firmness of the grip, yet the forward part has 
no such office and may be regarded as deco- 
rative. This decoration, however, is not 
introduced purely for adornment, but is a 
natural completion of that which has a 
purpose. The term passively teleological cor- 
rectly describes it. The scratched band along 
the top of the blade balances the notched 
cutting-edge below. It is not necessary, in 
the functional sense; but it is a proper, be- 
cause an appropriate decoration. It is differ- 
ent from the roses and wreaths on the early 
form of typewriter. These are put on just 
to look "pretty/' and are therefore extra- 
neous, being in no sense teleological. 



ioo AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



There is a difference between pure deco- 
ration and construction that is decorative. 
The one is superficial, intrusive, and hence 
usually in bad taste; the other is natural, 
appropriate, and capable of arousing aesthetic 
pleasure. Examples of decorative construc- 
tion may be seen in the tools of Fig. i and in 
the guns of Fig. 2. To cite a few: The twist 
of the bits, the curves of the brace, the net- 
work on the head of the brace which aids the 
hand in tightening the hold on the bit, the 
delicate curves on blade and handle of the 
axe or those on the handle of saw or plane, 
the perfect curved surfaces upon the wood 
and iron work of the modern guns, especially 
the upper one. 

Over-decoration is the weakness of the 
vulgar. Consult, for example, the pictures of 
furniture in the catalogue of any great mail- 
order house. Here one finds meaningless 
curves, wriggles and twists on the lines that 
should be simple in design and correct in 
proportion; lion claws adorn the feet of a 
six-dollar rocker; carvings and scrolls, hol- 
lows and bumps cover the tortured wood. 
Add to the atrocities in the frames the worse 
barbarities in the upholsterings, and one has 
a spectacle at once terrible, laughable, and 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 101 



pathetic in its ugliness. What have the 
American people done that they should 
suffer these aesthetic tortures? Why should 
the householder be the victim? Because he 
is a farmer? But the farmer's automobile, his 
carriage, his harness, his tools and machines, 
in so far as they are highly efficient, are 
beautiful, at least in their proportions. 

As before remarked, it is that which under- 
goes no inner evolution which is particularly 
susceptible to aesthetic desecration. Almost 
any chair or sofa will hold the weight of a 
man, and therefore its inner necessities do 
not make correct proportion imperative. It 
is here that ugliness rages with terrible 
hunger for the striking, the grotesque, the 
bizarre. And the stuff is not really cheap. 
Before me is the picture of three pieces, a 
sofa and two chairs, that are marked at 
$54.60, and yet each one wie es nicht sein soil, 
an example of vulgar taste utterly inhar- 
monious with the chaste and beautifully 
plated or solid silver ware or the delicate 
china in the house that will ultimately con- 
tain both. What are teachers for, if they 
cannot improve the taste of their pupils to a 
point which will render these monstrosities 
of decoration impossible? 



102 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



Let us not delude ourselves by imagining 
that it is because these things are made by 
machinery that they are so hideous. The 
whole matter is purely psychological — an 
uneducated public to which commerce caters, 
either with greater ignorance or with a moral 
culpability whose lightest punishment should 
be condemnation to live in houses furnished 
with the aesthetic corruptions they invent. 

The decorations on stoves, sewing-ma- 
chines, rugs, wall-papers, bedsteads, table- 
coverings, etc., which these houses furnish 
are of the same order, varying only with the 
possibilities of distortion. Why should one 
seem to be walking on a flamboyant flower- 
bed when one steps upon a rug, or behold a 
horticultural garden upon the walls? Will 
the miseries of cold-storage eggs and poultry 
be alleviated by cooking them upon a stove 
that is a mass of senseless curlicues, pro- 
jections and depressions? Such articles 
should be consigned to the scrap-heap, or 
hidden in museums along with other in- 
struments of torture. 

The barbarities of dress are not so excessive 
as those described in household articles. The 
household enjoys no immediate comparisons 
with the furnishings of other houses which 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 103 



would tend to make their own odious, but 
when an over-decorated dress is seen on the 
street in juxtaposition with a dress that is in 
correct taste, the contrast is immediate and 
obvious, and, if the contrast be too great and 
between people of equal standing in life, it is 
overwhelming. Pity, contempt, and ridicule 
here perform their beneficent work of edu- 
cation. But this is pathological treatment, 
which should be made unnecessary by proper 
teaching. Children should be trained in 
school to appreciate and so to use colors and 
forms that in the high-schools, at least, the 
taste in dress will be as correct as that in 
grammatical forms and in pronunciation and 
diction. A good high-school student is usually 
able to speak correctly if he so desires, but he 
may be incapable of making aesthetic combi- 
nations. 

Crazes for decoration sometimes sweep over 
the land like epidemics of the grippe, nor 
are they confined to one country. A German 
cartoon pictures the women of the house- 
hold engaged in a passionate effort to decorate 
everything in it, and all at once — the dishes, 
the lamp-shade, the baby's bottle and mug, 
the chairs, tables, and walls, and even the 
hair and faces of the occupants, those of the 



io4 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



aged and sleeping grandfather not excepted. 
These exuberances are perhaps not especially 
harmful so long as they are transient, but 
when they become a fixed mania, then 
one may expect to find the houses of such 
people a jumble of incongruous decoration, 
nothing escaping and nothing agreeing with 
the rest. An uneasy sea is as conducive to 
good digestion and peace of mind as is such 
a house. Its jangled disharmonies are as 
glaring to the eye as similar discords on the 
piano are to the ear. 

On the other hand, decoration that really 
has a purpose and that conduces to the 
aesthetic value of the article in question, even 
though passively, may be a pure and con- 
stant source of pleasure. Let us then make 
a bonfire of all meaningless, foolish, or atro- 
cious decorations of the mail-order houses, 
and replace them by what is fitting, chaste, 
and beautiful, and a part of the world will be 
thereby transformed from a nightmare of 
ugliness into a dream of beauty. Not only 
will the resulting objects be more beautiful, 
but they will be more lasting and no more 
expensive. One color costs no more than 
another, a good design in construction or 
decoration is not more expensive than a bad 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 105 



one. It is materials alone, or almost alone, 
that should make the difference in cost; and 
often cheap textiles, for example, are almost 
as beautiful as much more costly ones. To 
see the effect of ease of comparison on taste, 
contrast the wholesale production of furni- 
ture and household articles with the similar 
production of men's clothing by the great 
manufacturing firms. The latter strive for 
simplicity, fit, and correct proportion, while 
the former establishments are guilty of all 
the aesthetic sins there are. 

^Esthetic display in shop windows is potent 
in the aesthetic education of the public. 
When beauty is used to enhance the attrac- 
tiveness of the inexpensive, as it is now used 
to exalt that of the costly, then teachers will 
find it easier to mark out in the minds of 
their pupils the metes and bounds of good 
taste in decoration. 

V. THE VITAL 

The vital as an element of beauty has close 
relations to proportion and force, for the 
vitality of a man, animal, or plant is largely 
measured by powers of accomplishment, 
while a clumsily built animal, like the alliga- 



io6 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



tor or the hippopotamus, seems not only 
devoid of effectiveness because of defective 
proportion, but to be also for this reason 
feeble in action. This impression is of course 
heightened by seeing these creatures in cap- 
tivity, where the characteristics of their 
native haunts are lacking. In other words, 
vitality to have aesthetic value must not only 
be present, but it must also seem to be 
present, that is, the object must look the 
part it is expected to play. 

The strong horse that can carry a man on 
his back a hundred miles a day; the bulldog 
that can for a mile circle a rapidly moving 
street car and at the same time bark con- 
tinuously with the sharp explosiveness of a 
motorcycle; the lion or tiger or grizzly bear 
that can kill an animal larger than itself 
with a blow of the paw; the python that can 
crush and swallow a deer; the fox that can 
race all day before the hounds, which can in 
turn follow him all day, waking the woodland 
echoes with their deep, bell-like baying, — all 
of these and many more arouse our aesthetic 
admiration because of their vitality. We 
admire the plants of vigorous, thrifty growth, 
even if the farmer and the horticulturist do 
not always love what Bailey calls the "willing 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 107 



growers," like the dandelion, the burdock, or 
the morning-glory. 

Children should be taught, especially in 
their nature-study, to recognize and appre- 
ciate the vital as an element in the beauty of 
the plant and animal world, and, conversely, 
to seek to develop this element in themselves, 
not alone from motives of efficiency, but 
from those of beauty as well. What girl 
really believing that vitality is a strong 
constituent of her own beauty, would from 
lower aesthetic motives deliberately reduce 
it? There are relative values in the aesthetic, 
as well as in the intellectual or the moral 
world. Health is more beautiful than illness, 
strength than weakness, skill than clumsiness, 
and vitality is an indispensable element in 
the beauty of living creatures. 

VI. THE TYPICAL 

This quality of beauty is especially appli- 
cable to objects in nature, but is not confined 
to them; for a gun, a weapon, an ornament, 
a coin, a cathedral, a temple, a tool, a ma- 
chine, a piece of pottery, a rug, a vase, a 
statue, etc., may be a type of its class. 

A perfect type of almost any plant, animal, 



io8 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



or thing may, because of this fact alone, 
awaken our admiration. Even if we should 
not particularly like foreign races of people 
or particular stages of their development, 
yet a painter or a sculptor will at once 
command our admiration when he places 
before us a perfect specimen of any one of 
them, be he savage or civilized, or white, 
yellow, or black in color. Lorado TafVs 
colossal statue of Black Hawk, the cele- 
brated Indian chief, which stands upon a 
bluff of Rock River near the author's boy- 
hood home is an example. 

ON THE COLOSSAL STATUE OF BLACK HAWK 

Majestic symbol thou of rude mankind, 

When each his ends still fondly sought to gain 

By passion's sway, or sacrifice and pain, 

Before the dawn dispelled the night of mind. 

These fertile farms that broaden on the sight, 

Where now the households pass their busy hours, 

Were once wide plains bedecked with prairie flowers, 

Or swept by autumn fires that lit the night. 

Thou stand'st for him who taught his martial band 

In camp, in ambush, and in battle's rage, 

To hold their hunting-grounds with heavy hand 

'Gainst swarming foes who sought their heritage. 

Of that departed host, Black Hawk alone 

Is not forgot — is now enshrined in stone. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 109 



A type, however, is really a type only 
when it embodies in adequate form the essen- 
tial characteristics of its class. He would not 
be a typical savage who had lost his decora- 
tions, or his muscular vigor, or his rugged 
and implacable expression, or if he showed 
any deficiency in the qualities of his race. A 
type must, therefore, be complete, and is 
consequently aesthetically agreeable. The 
characteristic features then become a neces- 
sity of complete and hence artistic expression. 
An Arab chief acquires, because of this per- 
fection, a dignity, grace, and loftiness of 
bearing that might be lacking in any par- 
ticular chief encountered upon the desert. 
The latter might be squalid with dirt and 
rags, but the type must be the Arab at his 
best. A naturalist rejoices in a perfect spe- 
cimen of any class or order of being, not, it 
may be, reflecting that his pleasure is mostly 
aesthetic. When the Greek found the typi- 
cal athlete, he wrought his form in marble 
and called it a god. 



CHAPTER VIII 



IDEAL UNITY OF CONTENT AND FORM 
I" TNDER this topic one might discuss 



the history of art, and show what the 



content and the form have been at 
different periods and among various races of 
mankind. Egyptian art is unique, so is that 
of China or Japan. Classic art is one thing 
and romantic another, and both differ in 
some respects from the art of today. When 
art is free, it is the spontaneous expression 
of the thought and feeling of a people. When- 
ever it ceases to be such an expression, 
content and form are thrown out of balance 
with respect to present life. A belated or 
foreign piece of artistic expression, say a 
Madonna of the time of Raphael, may be 
in accord with a former age, but is not 
likely to be in accord with our own. It is 
for this reason that attempts to develop the 
aesthetic nature of children by relying upon 
the art of other periods usually fail. It is 
practically impossible to give children a 
consciousness that is foreign to their elders. 
When the art of any period is an expression 




(no) 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION in 



of the daily thought and feeling of a people, 
then it will be potent with their children, but 
not otherwise. The place for romantic and 
classic art is in historical correlation, and 
they should not be presented until the 
student has an apperceiving basis for them, 
namely, in the high school, and in connection 
with historical studies of the period in 
question. 

One concession should doubtless be made 
at this point, namely, that when the art of a 
given period expresses thought and feeling 
that are of lasting rather than transient 
interest to mankind, then the art that gives 
adequate expression to this phase of human 
experience is always valid, and may always 
be taught in its appropriate setting. An 
example is found in tragedy, which has 
flourished at only two periods, once in Athens 
for perhaps three-quarters of a century, and 
once in England and France for about twice 
that length of time. But so universal is the 
tragic element in life that the young of every 
age are deeply affected by it. Hamlet and 
Macbeth still have power to stir the depths 
of emotion; nor are they likely soon to lose it. 

A few practical aspects of the relation of 
form to content may be now considered: 



ii2 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



i. Form without content. 

The "dead fish" already mentioned illus- 
trates the point. The artist may busy himself 
so intensely with the manner of expression that 
the thing to be expressed may be diminished, 
or perhaps almost ignored. A piano-player may 
become so wrapped up in technique that he 
leaves the soul out of his playing, or may play 
that which is largely devoid of thought and 
feeling. His music then becomes an elaborate 
display of dexterity in finger movements, 
and the artist makes himself a rival of the 
playing-machine. Painting and sculpture 
may in similar manner be a species of pho- 
tography, in which clothes, wrinkles of the 
face, and transient expressions may be re- 
corded, but in which a revelation of real char- 
acter is lacking. Thus, George Bernard Shaw 
tells how a number of artists have attempted 
to make a statue of him, but without doing 
more than to make a fairly adequate expres- 
sion of his clothes and his reputed character. 
He says also that it was not until Rodin 
molded a bust of him that his actual character 
stood revealed. The result seems to have left 
Mr. Shaw with mingled feelings, in which 
admiration for the artist is tempered by a 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 113 



bit of dismay at the nakedness of the exhibi- 
tion of his own real self. 

2. Form inadequate to content. 

An artist was once painting a picture of an 
old wooden bridge. A rural bystander re- 
proached him for wasting his time, saying 
that half a mile down stream there was a 
new iron bridge that would be worth paint- 
ing. The artist smiled and went on with his 
work. He saw in the old wooden bridge 
what the farmer did not — its past and the 
life associated with it. Generations of men 
had used it. The past life of the community 
was bound up with it, children had angled 
for fishes from its convenient support, lovers 
had leaned over its friendly railing as they 
tried to read in the placid depths below what 
the future had in store for them. For such a 
wealth of meaning the old, decaying wooden 
bridge was much better than the new iron 
one, however perfect its proportions or how- 
ever brightly it might be painted. 

A poetic thought needs an adequate poetic 
expression. If the conception is airy and 
fanciful, the verse must answer to it. Puck's 
speeches certainly would not sound well in 
sonnet form, for they need expression as 

H 



ii 4 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



swift, ethereal, and audacious as the sprite 
himself. 

Neither does philosophy nor abstruse 
thought gain anything from a rhythmic 
expression, however perfect the rhyme or the 
measure. Much of Browning's verse is to 
some as hard to read as is the "Critique of 
Pure Reason." What aesthetic pleasure can 
such persons hope to have from it? 

However impressive an artist's ideals, they 
fall quite flat if his expression is not adequate. 
A putty face on a statue carries with it a 
corresponding impression to the beholder, 
even though to the artist his effort may 
mean celestial beauty. His product needs 
interpretation, like the daub of color entitled 
"The Israelites Crossing the Red Sea." "But 
where are the Israelites?" was asked. "Oh, 
they have gone over." "Then where are the 
Egyptians?" "Oh, they have gone under!" 

3. Inadequacies oj Material. 

It has been well said that material dictates 
no forms that shall be constructed from it, 
but only forbids those that are not in har- 
mony with its qualities. A watch-chain 
whittled from wood may be a curiosity, but 
it is evident that wood is not well adapted 



^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 115 



for such a purpose, being too frail and too 
clumsy. A set of ivory furniture is to be 
found in the Berlin museum. There is a large 
silver arm-chair, whose front legs rest upon 
silver lions, to be found in Castle Rosenborg 
in Copenhagen. Leather has been made from 
human skin, drinking vessels from skulls; 
chains, bouquets, etc., from hair; rooms have 
been furnished throughout with porcelain, 
the walls also being covered with this ma- 
terial; the statue of Ada Rehan, the actress, 
at the Columbian Exposition was cast in 
silver; at fairs it is not uncommon to see 
figures in butter representing persons or 
animals; boys have from time immemorial 
built snow forts and snow men; one man built 
a house from beer bottles, and so on. These 
are for the most part freak constructions, 
and are never taken seriously as being any- 
thing else. 

4. Imitations. 

These are of two sorts, the legitimate and 
the illegitimate, which are often hard to 
distinguish, since what is at first considered 
aesthetically bad may in time be transformed 
into what is good and commendable. In 
our early colonial architecture, Greek forms 



u6 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



of columns, pilasters, etc., which were always 
constructed of marble or other stone, were 
imitated in wood. Long familiarity with 
such structures has rendered them toler- 
able, and in some cases admirable, where 
there have been important modifications 
to suit the nature of the material used. 
Recently concrete blocks have been cast to 
imitate stone, even to the rough surfaces 
left by the mason in fitting the stones for use 
in the wall. Buildings erected from such 
imitation stone have been lamentable fail- 
ures from an artistic standpoint, since the 
regularity in the size of the blocks made the 
structures look like the block houses con- 
structed by children, except on a larger scale. 
The ugliness of the imitation contributed 
further to the inartistic character of the result. 
As soon, however, as men began to treat 
concrete, not as an imitation of stone, but as 
a material to be handled in accordance with 
its own qualities, forms of great beauty began 
at once to emerge. The Hotel Ponce de Leon, 
at St. Augustine, Florida, made of concrete, is 
considered one of the most beautiful in the 
world; yet the marks of the planks out of 
which the * 'forms" were constructed are 
plainly visible on all the outer walls. At 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 117 



first architects imitated wood or brick houses 
in the distribution of window-space, etc., in 
their monolithic structures, but with ill artis- 
tic effects; but when they studied these mat- 
ters in accordance with the nature of the new 
material, many houses of great beauty were 
produced. Miami, Florida, for example, has 
undergone a rapid development in the artistic 
use of concrete, the materials for which are 
there abundant. The new station of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad in New York City is 
constructed of concrete, and impresses the 
beholder no less by its beauty than by its 
magnificence. 

Celluloid, at first a bad substitute for 
ivory and linen, has developed perfectly 
legitimate uses of its own. Glass and paste 
and cheap stones are used to imitate dia- 
monds, but always to the disgust of the 
judicious. A thin veneer of fine, hard woods 
over inexpensive lumber has long been a 
favorite device for those who would have 
fine-appearing furniture at small cost. 

The aesthetic bearings of veneer are sus- 
ceptible of debate. Why object to it? It 
certainly deceives no one, since the grain- 
ings do not correspond with those of solid 
woods, and are often put on as if a cross- 



n8 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



section of the log were used longitudinally, 
so that a drawer front looks frail and as 
if a sturdy push would break it in two in 
the middle. But how can beauty in wood- 
texture be more than skin-deep anyway? 
The surface is all that one can ever see. If 
this is agreeable, why concern oneself with 
how the interior would look if it could be seen? 

Again, mahogany is scarce and expensive. 
Why should one person possess solid furniture 
made from it, when by cutting it into veneer 
sixteen times as many people could enjoy it? 
Is there not something unethical about fur- 
niture that wastes what otherwise might be 
utilized for higher purposes? The same 
questions arise when we consider silver- 
plated ware for the table, or "filled' ' watch- 
cases in which a sheet of gold covers some 
baser metal in the interior of the case. Silver- 
plated spoons of good quality are now war- 
ranted for fifty years. Why then should 
anyone object to them? They last long 
enough, while at the end of this period they 
can easily be replated, when they are as 
good as new. Indeed, solid silver knives 
would be well-nigh worthless for cutting 
purposes, the underlying steel being necessary 
for strength and for holding a cutting edge. 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 119 



Yet, notwithstanding this plausible defense 
of veneer and kindred processes, the mind is 
not satisfied. The things do not seem quite 
genuine; in many cases they pretend to be 
more than they are, and are suggestive of 
deception, if not of a kind of fraud. This 
seems especially so with wood veneers. It 
would not be far wrong to say that all mere 
imitation is aesthetically displeasing as soon 
as it is discovered. New forms of roofing are 
allowable if effective in keeping out moisture, 
but they should not try to imitate other 
roofing substances, such as tile, shingles, or 
slate. It is not so much the novel material 
as the more or less transparent fraud that 
people object to. Asbestos may make a much 
better roofing than cypress shingles, but it 
ought to stand on its own merits, and not 
seem to be something that it is not. Yet even 
here an educational transition seems some- 
times to be needful, owing to the conserva- 
tism of taste. New steel Pullman cars are 
often painted on the inside to imitate ma- 
hogany and rosewood, the idea being that the 
patrons, who are used to these effects, would 
be psychologically disturbed if a battleship 
gray, for example, were used. The car might 
seem "cold" and forbidding. In time, how- 



120 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



ever, the steel construction will be frankly 
acknowledged as such, and further imitation 
will be distasteful. 

Not being able to command marble for 
our statuary, shall we be content to use plas- 
ter of Paris? Perhaps. The surface effects of 
the two substances are not comparable. The 
marble is soft, yet brilliant, mellowing and 
modulating light and shade; it is pure and 
altogether lovely in its reflection of light. 
Plaster of Paris is the reverse of all this, for 
it is chalky, dull, and lifeless. Painted or 
varnished, it is but little if any more pleasing. 
Why then put up with it at all? The answer 
is simple: It reproduces the form correctly, 
even if it disappoints the eye in the aspect of 
light and shade and brilliancy of finish. 

New substances like aluminum, linoleum, 
asbestos, etc., first used as imitations, quickly 
win a place for themselves because of their 
inherent qualities, and often render articles 
beautiful which before were ugly. Compare 
an aluminum cooking vessel, for example, 
with one made of cast-iron. The aluminum 
utensil is light, clean, attractive in color, and 
practically everlasting, while the other is the 
the reverse of all these, except perhaps in 
the matter of durability. 



CHAPTER IX 



SUGGESTIONS ON ACQUIRING AN 
AESTHETIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 

A. THE ATTITUDE OF MIND 
>| RANTED that before the creation of 



a work of art there is in the mind of 



the artist a content of artistic thought 
or feeling, and that for its realization this 
content depends upon being expressed 
through sensuous means; what, it may be 
asked, is the state of mind in the individual 
necessary for this expression? The answer is, 
that this content must fall into forms that 
give him pleasure. We may go far before we 
find a complete explanation of all the psy- 
chological causes of this gratification, but 
some readily suggest themselves. Every 
piece of art creation is an expansion and 
realization of the self, not only in its purely 
individual, but also in its social aspects. 
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," sings 
Keats, but we need to ask, to whom? To 
all beholders as well as to the producer. It is 
a long time since the soul of Phidias thrilled 




(121) 



122 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



with the production of his statuary, but what 
remains has always thrilled the beholder, 
and will continue to do so as long as it exists. 

Schiller conceived this pleasure of creator 
and beholder as an expression of the play 
impulse. The artist, playing, enshrines his 
thought in marble, language, or tones. The 
joy he feels is a spontaneous product that 
springs from his creation, as laughter bubbles 
from the mouth of a child in happy play. 
Defective as this theory may be, it is yet 
suggestive to the teacher who would arouse 
the aesthetic life of the child to full expression. 
Like play, art creation feels itself free from 
economic necessity; for though the artist 
may hope to sell his wares, yet the sale is an 
after consideration. In so far as he is a true 
artist, he is trying to express his soul, rather 
than feed his body. Again such creation is 
like play, in that it seeks an ideal represen- 
tation of the truth or the reality that forms 
the background of significance for the work 
of art. This is as true of the axe as it is 
of the statue of Apollo. Psychologically art 
production is like play, also, in that its ends 
are immediate rather than remote. The end 
of economic toil lies not in the toil, but in 
what the toil produces — the comforts of life 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 123 



for those for whom one works; but the end 
of play is the playing itself. While the play 
goes on, its end is being realized; when it is 
done, its purpose has been realized. The same 
is true of artistic labor, for the self is being 
realized, the joy is being experienced as the 
work proceeds; when it is finished, the artistic 
"play" and its pleasure have been experi- 
enced. Hereafter even the artist has the 
aesthetic pleasure, not of the man producing, 
but of the man observing. 

The conclusion from these considerations 
is that artistic education is a labor of pleasure, 
not of pain; that the young worker should be 
exalted by love of what he is doing, not de- 
pressed by painful routine or spurred on by 
compulsion of any sort whatever. When he 
sings he should do so from a full heart; when 
he draws or paints or moulds, he should feel 
his own inner being flowing out into the 
object of his creation. 

This attitude of mind should be maintained 
so far as possible in the second-hand process 
of appreciating what has already been pro- 
duced. The individual, in some degree at 
least, should feel the same sensations of 
artistic satisfaction that accompany pro- 
duction; he should feel his spiritual self 



124 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



expand, as he finds in a poem forceful 
expression of feelings and views of life 
that he has perhaps dimly felt, but which 
he has not been able to formulate in full 
expression. 

Do we need to study the meaning of a 
work of art? Undoubtedly, but we should 
not turn such study into drudgery or divorce 
it from its other half, the sensuous expression 
that makes it beautiful. Should we revel in 
the beauties of the expression, as in poetry 
or painting? Most assuredly, but not to the 
exclusion of the significance that transmits 
life and meaning to these otherwise inert or 
lifeless forms. 

It is said that ignorant preachers sometimes 
work their more ignorant congregations into 
an ecstasy of religious fervor by swaying 
back and forth, and exclaiming Oh! Oh! Oh! 
with all degrees of pathos, of horror, or of 
hope. Exclamatory aesthetics is in no sense 
superior to exclamatory religion. Both lack 
the content of significance; indeed, exclam- 
atory aesthetics is rather the worse, since the 
Oh's of religion might be considered a species 
of instrumental music, playing upon the feel- 
ings, although not enlightening the under- 
standing; whereas most art worthy the name 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 125 



has a distinct content that may be formulated 
more or less adequately in language. 

Hence, not tears in the production or in 
the appreciation of the beautiful, but rich, 
full and abiding pleasure! 

B. CONCERNING NATURE 

The first basal idea in the appreciation of 
nature is that of significance. This takes two 
chief forms, as follows: 

(1) That of junction in organic objects, as 
in flowers, structure of plants and animals, 
modes of growth, and the like. 

(2) That of the action of natural forces, as 
in the fall of water; the formation of ice and 
snow; the weathering of rocks, hillsides, 
mountains; the action of waves, avalanches, 
volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. 

Naturally, the place to acquire this insight 
is in the nature-study and science classes. 
When the circulation and the forms of water, 
for example, are once understood, the pupil 
is then in condition better to get a first-hand 
appreciation of the aesthetic value of the 
wonderful phenomena of nature connected 
with them — the forms and movements of 
clouds; the fall of the rain; the spring, the 



126 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



rill, the creek, and the river; the foaming 
cascade; the majestic onward sweep of the 
waters; the crystals of snow and ice. He is, 
moreover, by this first-hand aesthetic view 
of nature in better condition to appreciate 
the literature and painting that draw so 
freely upon them. 

The second basal idea in the aesthetic 
appreciation of nature has to do with two 
things, as follows: 

(1) Adaptation of form to function, as 
already explained in previous sections. This 
includes, of course, regularity, symmetry, 
harmony, unity in variety, proportion, etc. 

(2) Colors. — The colors of nature are 
worth studying, not only for the direct first- 
hand pleasure they yield, but also for the 
bearing they have upon the use of colors in 
the arts, especially in interior decoration, 
and the color-harmonies of clothing. Two 
things especially are to be observed: (a) 
That bright and obtrusive colors always have 
a background of subdued color, also that 
these brilliant displays are not constant, but 
periodic and brief. (6) That this sober back- 
ground is subject to constant variation, due 
to the wind, the season, and the ever-varying 
quantity and quality of light. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 127 



Taking up the matter of the color back- 
ground first, we observe that this changes 
with the season. Compare the fresh, tender 
greens of early spring with the darker ones 
of summer, and the browns, russets, yellows, 
and reds of autumn, and, finally, with the 
dark wood-colors of winter. The eye has 
been so developed that we can find pleasure 
in all these stages, except perhaps the last, 
to which for one reason or another most 
persons are not sensitive. Perhaps the mas- 
siveness of the sensations from the white of 
snow dulls us to minor harmonies of land- 
scape colorings. We notice, further, that our 
color background of whatever season under- 
goes perpetual change. It is not one unvary- 
ing mass of green like a wall, but to the eye 
that has been taught to see, it reveals the 
most varied scene of beauty. The wind tosses 
the branches of a tree, and its whole aspect 
changes, for every leaf, like a mirror, reflects 
its bit of light at a new angle or from a dif- 
ferent surface. When a breeze sweeps over a 
grainfield, the eye is greeted by great billows 
of colored light. Even the close-clipped lawn, 
which might be presumed to have but one 
color, is subject to variation with every 
change of sunlight, — at dawn, midday or 



128 ^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



twilight, or when the vagrant summer clouds 
cast their moving shadows upon it. Though 
subdued in comparison with the brilliant but 
transient blooming -time, the colored back- 
ground of nature deals in colors of a purity 
that art cannot rival, besides having the 
charm of infinite variety. These facts attest 
the advantage of enjoying color at first 
hand; also the unnecessary and lamentable 
loss when men are indifferent to the most 
impressive beauties of nature. 

We know what biological purpose the 
brilliant colors of blooming-time serve, but 
what aesthetic lesson do they teach? Evi- 
dently this: Brilliant colors need a soberer 
background. A bright red dress, like a bed 
of flaming red flowers, might be a decorative 
object upon a green landscape; but it would 
be less pleasing in a closed compartment. 
Even there for festive occasions and a brief 
flash of display it might be in good taste, as 
a moment of sunlight sometimes illuminates 
a storm-cloud, but as a permanent fixture 
it might have the same irritating effect upon 
men that it often has upon animals. Similarly 
a room whose walls are so obstrusive in color 
that there is nothing brighter to relieve and 
adorn them becomes painful in its over- 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 129 



excitement of the nerves of sight. The masses 
of color in houses, as in fields and forests, 
should be subdued, however pure and rich 
they may be. They then form a background 
against which pictures and their frames, 
mouldings, and other decorations may appear 
to advantage. The same principle holds for 
dress. If the whole is a flaring decoration to 
a room, it sacrifices its own inherent beauty 
and suitableness, and is nothing more than 
a flower-bed on a lawn. The dress of a person, 
like the person himself, should be individual, 
having its own contrasts, variety, and unity. 
A dress may have decorations, but it should 
not degenerate into a decoration for a com- 
partment or a landscape. 

Art teachers know how to teach children 
and older persons to distinguish, mix, and 
balance colors; even primary pupils produce 
more or less natural color effects in land- 
scape representation, and they make designs 
also in color. Teachers know about color 
harmonies and contrasts, about hue and 
value and chroma, intensity, purity, tints, 
shades, etc. This work is begun in the 
kindergarten, but it is never complete until 
the great first-hand color-lessons of nature 
herself have been learned and applied. 
1 



130 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



C. CONCERNING THE USEFUL ARTS 

Here again we have the two fields, creation 
and appreciation, with their mutual rela- 
tions. Appreciation is always brightened and 
quickened by efforts at construction. A 
problem in the latter involves the questions 
of general suitableness, the function and 
consequent form of each part and its relation 
to the other parts. It is here that free-hand 
and mechanical drawing are of supreme 
importance, for they are plastic to the touch 
of the young artist, and designs may be 
changed again and again before they assume 
the shapes that are to be fixed in solid 
materials. 

Not only may appreciation be furthered 
by efforts at construction, but both may be 
greatly aided by comparison, arrangement and 
rearrangement of articles already produced, 
such as the furniture of rooms, pictures for 
its walls, household implements for kitchen 
and pantry, dishes, silverware, linen for 
dining-room and other tables, for bathroom 
and chambers. Not only should these ob- 
jects be examined in isolation, but they 
should be seen in their proper relations when 
in actual or ideal use. Every large school 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 131 



should have supplies of such articles and 
places in which they can be used. The pupils, 
perhaps in groups, should have frequent 
opportunities to experiment with them, try- 
ing the effect first of this and then of that 
display. Criticism of teachers may lead to 
improvement, until in the end the kodak 
may be called upon to make a permanent 
record of what has been accomplished. On 
special occasions it may be quite possible to 
have public exhibitions of such examples of 
good taste, when the often meager supplies 
of the school may be supplemented by others 
borrowed from homes and stores. 

When the resources of a neighborhood are 
utilized to their utmost, then pictorial illus- 
tration may be called upon to supplement 
them. Opening two or three recent maga- 
zines, I find, among dozens of other helpful 
pictures, the following: A woman watering 
her flowers; a maid in handsome kitchen cos- 
tume stirring up a batch of biscuits; another 
still more attractive polishing a mirror; 
another making a cup of bouillon; a model 
bathroom; one side of a kitchen, showing 
arrangement of stove, cabinet, and sink; 
arrangement of wash-tubs in a laundry; a 
revolving "silent waitress" for the dining- 



1 3 2 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



room table; mission furniture; new electrical 
apparatus for the table; man in his easy chair; 
craftsman houses; model candle shades; 
handsomely dressed young lady with her 
hand in her hair, apparently just waiting for 
"something" — very beautiful, she ought to 
have it; a dining-room table set for afternoon 
tea, with chairs and other accessories at hand; 
washing-machines in use; a parlor scene; girls 
in attire that need not be discussed; spoons; 
roast of beef, with accessories, cooked in a 
paper bag; a vacuum-cleaner; aluminum 
ware; lamp-shades; cut-glass; pretty girl with 
a poodle advertising a massage cream; beau- 
tiful costumes; old gentleman at table, evi- 
dently well pleased; well-dressed girl at 
piano; equally well-dressed young men, think- 
ing about their clothes; plenty of automobiles; 
girl with conical broad-brimmed hat, orna- 
mented with a feather duster, such as Semi- 
nole Indians wear; automatic pistols, war- 
ranted to kill everything in sight; "fairies" 
of the soap-kettle; holeless socks; bookcases; 
men at lunch in a parlor-car; a family enjoy- 
ing a Victor record; books, engines, mat- 
tresses, eye-glasses, kodaks, etc. 

All these things are represented in the 
advertisements. In the body of the magazines 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 133 



are shown many works of art from daily life, 
illustrating how people look and behave in 
diverse trying or delightful situations. Some 
of the art is atrocious, some of it just bad, 
but much of it is good. It is also a kind of 
art that people are willing to pay for. It is 
said that a Chicago artist commands a 
salary of thirty thousand dollars a year for 
his cartoons. Such illustrative material is 
abundant and may be had for the asking. 

However earnest or practical the voca- 
tional preparations of the young may be, 
whether they pertain to the house, the shop, 
or the field, they always have their aesthetic 
side, so that he who attains an aesthetic view 
of this part of the world has, without money 
and without price, one of the purest sources 
of joy known to man. 

D. THROUGH POETRY 

That poetry properly selected and pre- 
sented is one of the greatest agencies for the 
acquisition of an aesthetic view of the world, 
is not only asserted by those who should 
know, but is almost self-evident upon re- 
flection; for that is just what poetry itself 
is — an aesthetic view of the world, Poetry 



134 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



takes the truth of human experience and 
clothes it in sensuous forms that appeal to 
the soul through eye and ear and fancy. 
Consider for a moment its cadences, its 
rhythms, its rhymes, its figures of speech, its 
appeal to color and form and action in nature; 
the mirror that it sets before the mind, in 
which one can behold all that he ever 
thought or felt or imagined, or can be led 
to think or feel or imagine; its musical play 
upon every emotion that moves across the 
stage of consciousness; its gleams of fancy, 
the fires of its patriotism, the ardor of its 
love, the intensity of its feeling concerning 
the important things of life and death. What 
is there lacking to stir the fluid depths of 
youthful thought and feeling? What more 
glorious instrument of vision into the world 
of beauty could be imagined? 

Yet with all these advantages, poetry as 
taught, though it always reaches a few, still 
often fails to reach the many. Girls are dis- 
posed to be rather fond of poetry at all 
times, but boys are generally unresponsive 
to it; youths are more susceptible, especially 
when they begin to fall in love, but most of 
them soon forget it, ignore it, or condemn 
it, as the case may be. They are likely to 



^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 135 



class it with perfumes, frivolities, senti- 
mentalities, and a general flabbiness of 
mental make-up. Others have a theoretical 
respect for it as for most art, but are not 
moved by it. One economic philosopher 
declares that the Sistine Madonna always 
makes him think of poverty and its miseries, 
since the bare feet convey these suggestions 
to him. He goes to sleep if Shakespeare is 
read to him; he has for poetry, in short, 
absolutely no response, except that of im- 
patient discomfort of mind. He wishes this 
were not so, but regrets to say that it is. 

Teachers of English literature should be 
the first to discover the difficulties in this 
situation and to overcome them. It may be 
that the layman can make no suggestions 
that will be helpful, but a few may be 
ventured: 

I. POETRY VS. POESY 

In the first place, should we not, espec- 
ially for the adolescent distinguish between 
poetry and poesy? Poesy, often called gentle 
poesy, attempts to make up by saccharinity 
for what it lacks in substance; it changes 
sentiment, which is wholesome and natural, 



136 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



into sentimentality, which is artificial and 
unwholesome. It revels in such adjectives 
as sweet, soft, gentle, sad, wan, languorous; 
it conjures up romantic or impossible scenes, 
as silly as they are artificial; it has often a 
surfeit of classical allusions, which are in- 
tended to sweeten the poem, but which only 
sicken the reader. A gentle knight is pricking 
o'er the plain; a love-lorn maid is praying to 
the moon; tears are being crystallized, pierced, 
strung on a thread and worn for amulets, and 
so on. Healthy-minded youth interested 
in realities properly rejects what is here 
derisively termed poesy. 

II. PSYCHOLOGICAL SEQUENCE 

Should we not be on guard against mere 
psychological sequence in verse, where one 
thing suggests the next, and this the third, 
and so on until both writer and reader are 
exhausted? It is comparatively easy for a 
writer to acquire what is called a "fatal 
facility" in making such rhymes. The psy- 
chological sequence, like the garrulity of 
extreme age, is helped on by similarities in 
sound, irrespective of sense. If such a writer 
has at the end of a line the word years, we 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 137 



are pretty sure to find in the next the word 
tears, not because there is anything to cry 
about, or because the writer feels like crying, 
or because he wants to make the reader cry, 
but just because tears rhymes with years and 
no other word like beers or biers or gears or 
smears or hears or here's seems to fit in. So 
tears it must be, and the lachrymal glands 
are pumped whether they be full or empty. 
Pope's "Essay on Criticism" abounds in 
such examples — "the cooling western breeze" 
is matched by "whispers through the trees." 
The lachrymose out of place appeals to 
youth even less than the saccharine. 

In English poetry, where the form is so 
elastic, those poems should be selected whose 
thought gives the unity that is necessary for 
an artistic whole. A modern writer confesses 
that he never can read Keat's "Endymion" 
through, but that he takes it up anywhere 
and submerges himself in its idyllic dreams 
much, it would seem, as the Chinaman smokes 
his opium! Irrespective of the merits of this 
poem, it is plain that "Endymion" and its 
like are not suitable for youth. The pipe 
dream is not for them, first because they 
do not care for it, and second, because at 
their stage of life it is not wholesome. 



138 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



III. TOO MUCH FREEDOM 

English verse appears to have but one 
universal rule — its lines must scan. If rhymes 
are used, they must be actual and not pseudo- 
rhymes. After these two things are attended 
to the bars are down. There may be as many 
feet in the line, or as many lines in the verse, 
as the fancy of the poet may suggest. The 
feet may be uniform throughout or varied 
and from line to line, the only requirement 
being that the tongue of the reader be not 
everlastingly tripping because of non-rhyth- 
mical order. 

The sonnet, which was once Italian, but 
which has been English as well for some three 
hundred years, is about the only old verse 
form in which we acknowledge any restric- 
tions except those mentioned. It must have 
fourteen iambic pentameter lines divided 
into two quatrains and one sestet. The 
orthodox Italian manner of rhyming is as 
follows: Two rhymes in the quatrains, ar- 
ranged as follows: abbaabba, while the 
sestet has three rhymes arranged c d e c d e. 
But Shakespeare and many other English 
writers ignore the Italian imperative, and 
rhyme in any order they please, a common 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 139 



order being abb a abb a — cdcdee. Some 
have alternate rhymes from the beginning 
with a couplet at the end. Other combi- 
nations are also practised. But owing to its 
compactness, the logical order of its unfold- 
ing, and its stately movement, the sonnet is 
hard to read and harder to write. Thousands 
of sonnets have been written, yet few of 
them are thrilling or greatly impressive or 
superbly beautiful. Each person doubtless 
has his favorites. Among those the writer 
loves most are Alice Maynell's "Renounce- 
ment,* ' David Gray's "In the Shadows," 
Christina Rossetti's "Remember," and all 
but the first quatrain of Wordsworth's "The 
World Is Too Much With Us." 1 

The consequence of turning the young 
loose on English poetry 2 is that they are like 
mariners at sea without a compass, especially 
if any of them essay the writing of verse. 
About all they can do is to try to imitate 
something they like, provided it seems suit- 
able to the type of thought they wish to 
express. 

!Maynard's English Classic Series, No. 192. Maynard, 
Merrill & Co., New York. 

2 See Burton E. Stevenson's "Home Book of Verse," with 
its three thousand seven hundred and forty-two pages of 
short poems. Henry Holt & Co., New York. 



i 4 o ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



There is, however, a set of verse-forms now 
thoroughly naturalized in English, although 
not much used except for the last thirty 
years, that were borrowed from the French in 
the early part of the nineteenth century. The 
French borrowed them from the troubadours 
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when 
these forms were at the height of their pop- 
ularity and perfection. 1 

Whatever may be thought of these forms, 
either as to their poetic quality or as to the 
range of their availability for English use, 
they have the great pedagogical advantage 
of definiteness as to rhymes and the number 
of lines to be used. They are all short, most 
have but two rhymes, nearly all have refrains 
whose position and length are determined 
by rule, while the number of lines is absolutely 
fixed. Nobody ever heard of a triolet that 
contained more or less than eight lines. If it 
had such variations it would not be a triolet. 

IV. THE NEW DEFINITE VERSE FORMS 

It is the writer's purpose to illustrate each 
of these new forms by verses of his own, 

1 For a full account, see Gleeson White's "Ballades and 
Rondeaus." Walter Scott, London. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 141 



not at all because of any merit they might be 
suspected to have, but rather as an encour- 
agement to the teacher to try them himself 
and to encourage his pupils to do the same. 
Nobody will seek to identify a verse-writer 
with a poet, but because we may not now 
have, or ever attain poetic power, is no good 
reason why we should not have the satis- 
faction of playing with words in new and 
most charming ways. The author has not 
had so much fun since he last sailed on Bis- 
cayne Bay as he has experienced in writing 
these verses, in the effort to make expan- 
sive and elusive thought and sentiment 
fit the frames that have been furnished for 
them. 

But whether or not teacher or pupil 
attempt the writing of these verses, which 
are as strictly limited in conditions as are 
propositions in geometry, his knowledge and 
appreciation of verse cannot but be enhanced 
by a study of them. Furthermore, whether 
successful or not, the attempt to keep within 
definite rules will give an insight into the 
technique of verse that could not easily be 
attained in any other way. These various 
forms will now be described briefly and 
illustrated. 



142 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



i. The Ballade. 

This is perhaps more than any other the 
parent form. It consists of three stanzas of 
eight lines each and an envoy of four lines. 
The last line of each stanza and of the envoy 
is a refrain. In a ballade with a double 
refrain, the first refrain is the fourth line of 
each of the stanzas, while the second is at 
the end as before, and the two refrains form 
the last two lines of the envoy. 

A variation of the ballade consists of three 
stanzas of ten lines each and an envoy of 
five. The rules of the ballade are as follows: 
(i) The same set of rhymes in the same order 
they occupy in the first stanza must repeat 
throughout the remaining stanzas. (2) No 
word once used as a rhyme may be used 
again for that purpose in the whole length of 
the poem. (3) Each stanza and the envoy 
must close with the refrain. For the eight- 
line ballade, but three rhymes are allowable. 
The sequence is as follows: ababbcbc, 
for each of the three verses, and b c b c for 
the envoy. The sense of the refrain must 
dominate and express the meaning and spirit 
of the whole; it is the soul for which the 
body of the stanzas exists. 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 143 



The envoy was originally a sort of invo- 
cation or dedication of the poem to the 
prince or dignitary to whom it was ad- 
dressed, but now it seems more a summary 
of all that has been presented. Those who 
wish to try the ten-line ballade are referred 
to the Gleeson White volume before cited. 
It contains copious illustrations. 

Here is a ballade with double refrain, 
suggested by that of Mr. Austin Dobson's 
on "Prose and Rhyme." 

PLAY AND WORK 
(Ballade — Double refrain) 

When as boys we sigh though the sun is glowing, 

And the school drags on with the clock's delay, 
And the muscles twitch with the pains of growing, 

Then it's hip! hurrah! we are off for play. 

But though squirrel scold or fox-hound bay, 
Be we white or black or Christian or Turk, 

When the school-bell rings, with its tinkle gay, 
Then it's come, lads, come, let's bend to the work. 

When as youths we list to the cry, "It's snowing!" 

And our lore-fed minds would their pains allay, 
And the thought of home is the sum of our knowing, 

Then it's hip! hurrah! we are off for play. 

But when sports are done and the cost's to pay, 
When action allures though its tasks may irk, 

And our zeal comes back as the tide to the bay, 
Then it's come, lads, come, Iet'6 bend to the work. 



144 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



When as men we long for the breeze that's blowing, 

For the thrush's song or the salt sea spray, 
As a balm for strife and a rest from sowing, 

Then it's hip! hurrah! we are off for play. 

But though yacht entice with its sails of gray, 
Or the mountain trout in the pool still lurk, 

When the far call comes that we must obey, 
Then it's come, lads, come, let's bend to the work. 

ENVOY 

Our respite from toil shall come when it may, 

Then it's hip! hurrah! we are off for play; 

But duties of life the brave never shirk, 

Then it's come, lads, come, let's bend to the work. 

2. The Rondeau. 

The most popular form of the rondeau is 
that of Voiture. It is written throughout on 
two rhymes, being composed of thirteen 
rhymed lines and two unrhymed refrains. 
The lines are now nearly always of eight 
syllables in length, while the refrain generally 
consists of the first half of the first line. The 
thirteen lines are grouped in three stanzas, 
the first having five lines, the second three, 
and the third five. The refrain occurs at the 
end of the second stanza, and at the close of 
the poem. The usual order of rhyme is 
a a b b a — a a b (and refrain) — a abba and 



/ESTHETIC EDUCATION 145 



refrain. The refrain is not counted in making 
up the thirteen lines. It is in the use of the 
refrain as an integral and inseparable part of 
the stanza that the chief neatness and the 
chief difficulty of the rondeau lies. It should 
be as natural as the Amen at the end of a 
prayer. In general the rondeau is suited to 
light and spontaneous sentiment, but it 
permits the graver sort as well. The whole 
must be a unit, rounded out and complete. 
The following illustration is offered: 

MY OPALS 
(Rondeau) 

In fitful gleams, not false but true, 
My opals shift their tints of blue, 
And fan their reds to mimic fire, 
Whose flames leap out and then retire, 
As glints of green their lights renew; 

But restless still, there comes to view 
The deep, the bright, celestial hue; 
'Tis thus these gems their truth attire 
In fitful gleams. 

I fain would think — ah! if you knew — 
From those who gave comes good in you, 
These fairy beams that I admire, 
That flash and glow and then expire, 
Are constant still, though ever due 
In fitful gleams. 

J 



146 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



3. The Rondel 

Rondel is merely the old form of the word 
rondeau. Though the forms for the rondel 
vary somewhat, the most accepted one is 
that of two rhymes, fourteen lines, with a 
repetition of the first two lines as a refrain 
at the end of the first eight-lined stanza, and 
at the close of the second stanza of six lines. 
It is well suited to spirited description, while 
its success depends largely upon the first two 
lines. The following is an illustration: 

I LOVE TO SAIL 
(Rondel) 

I love to sail on Biscayne Bay 

Across the white-caps running free, 
To taste the salt of flying spray, 

And feel the sunshine over me; 
From time's gray brood of cares I flee, 

And then it is that in my play 
I love to sail on Biscayne Bay 

Across the white-caps running free. 

Yes, o'er the brine I onward sway, 
Till years and griefs are lost at sea, 

And things that were are things that be; 
Is it not plain why I should say, 

I love to sail on Biscayne Bay 

Across the white-caps running free? 



ESTHETIC EDUCATION 147 



4. The Roundel. 

The roundel is also a modification of the 
roundeau and not a distinct form. It consists 
of three triplets with a refrain taken from the 
first line and placed at the end of the first 
and third stanzas. Again but two rhymes 
are allowed. They are arranged as follows: 
aba (and refrain) — b a b — and aba and 
refrain. Next to the triolet, this is perhaps 
the easiest poem for the beginner to use. 
If the first four syllables are happily chosen, 
the poem is naturally and easily written. 
Two illustrations are offered: 

IN TENDER GRIEF 
(Roundel) 

In tender grief we think of her who died 
These many years a-gone; her life, though brief, 
Was filled with love; we now the time abide 
In tender grief. 

"Ich liebe dich" a sigh, and then relief; 
How could she find the way across the tide 
That stretches endlessly beyond the reef? 

The years have flown; we work and play, yet hide 
Deep in our hearts our fondly treasured sheaf 
Of memories, and live through days that glide 
In tender grief. 



148 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



SLEEP, SWEETHEART, SLEEP 
(Roundel) 

Sleep, sweetheart, sleep; the sun's low down the west, 
Across the lawn the drowsy shadows creep, 
So in your crib like bird in downy nest, 
Sleep, sweetheart, sleep. 

Your pussie lies in slumber soft and deep, 
The fluffy chicks have snuggled down to rest; 
Lie still, dear one, nor through your eyelids peep. 

Awake? Then lay your head upon my breast, 
I'll rock, and sing your lullaby, and keep 
You safe; then in my arms thus closely pressed, 
Sleep, sweetheart, sleep. 

5. The Villanelle. 

White says the villanelle has been called 
"the most ravishing jewel worn by the Muse 
Erato." This may be true; it is certain that 
it takes as much grinding as a diamond to 
make it acceptable, and even then almost 
everything depends upon the refrains and 
their use. The following examples are offered 
with some reluctance, in the hope that they 
may challenge the reader to better them. As 
in most of these types, but two rhymes are 
allowed. The poem consists of five triplets 



^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 149 



and one quatrain at the close. The first and 
third lines of the first verse must be used 
alternately to form the third line in the 
remaining triplets, and both must be used to 
conclude the quatrain at the close. In all 
there are, of course, nineteen lines. White 
offers many examples, and says that the 
villanelle is a favorite and widely used form 
of verse. 

THE PARTING OF ROMEO AND JULIET 
(Villanelle) 

Ah, cruel hour when sings the lark! 
But sweet to hear the nightingale; 
The time is ours while holds the dark. 

Juliet, farewell; for look and hark! 
The rays of dawn light up the dale; 
Ah, cruel hour when sings the lark! 

It cannot be; for list! we mark 

The unseen voice that thrills the vale; 

The time is ours while holds the dark. 

Sweet Juliet, no; behold! the spark 

Of day still brighter glows, though pale; 

Ah, cruel hour when sings the lark! 

O stay! else love is lost like bark 

On stormy sea without a sail; 

The time is ours while holds the dark. 



150 AESTHETIC EDUCATION 



But fly! I see thee pale and stark! 
For day draws near, which we bewail; 
Ah, cruel hour when sings the lark! 
The time is ours while holds the dark. 

THE SENIOR'S FAREWELL 
(Villanelle) 

Farewell to college joys that fly, 
That in their flight still dearer grow; 
Good-by, to thee, Cornell, good-by. 

I love the bells that chime on high, 
But now their mellow tones ring low 
Farewell to college joys that fly. 

The fading glows that light the sky 
To me the parting signals show; 
Good-by to thee, Cornell, good-by. 

O days of work and play, ye lie 
Entwined with all I love below; 
Farewell to college joys that fly. 

Good-by, dear friends, for whom I sigh, 
Whose hearts are warm through ice and snow; 
Good-by to thee, Cornell, good-by. 

Though other scenes the world supply, 
And tides of friendship ebb and flow, 
Farewell to college joys that fly, 
Good-by to thee, Cornell, good-by. 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 151 



6. The Triolet. 

The triolet is a single stanza of two rhymes 
and eight lines, of which the first is repeated 
as the fourth, and the first and second to- 
gether as the seventh and eighth. "It is well 
fitted for epigrams, and the weight of its 
significance rests upon the fifth and sixth 
lines, while the perfection of its execution lies 
in the skill with which the third line is con- 
nected with the fourth, and the final couplet 
with the line preceding it." If one has wit 
and ingenuity, there is a good opportunity to 
apply them in the triolet; and, in any case, 
it is a form to invite trial and to reward 
diligence. Grammar - school pupils should 
be able to write it with ease and growing 
success. A few illustrations follow: 

A Quartet of Triolets on 

WHAT HOLDS THE WORLD UP? 

"It is Atlas, I think," 

Said Doris to Mabel. 
"He must want a drink! 
It is Atlas, I think, 
He won't let it sink — 

To hold it he's able. 
It is Atlas, I think," 
Said Doris to Mabel. 



152 ^ESTHETIC EDUCATION 



"It's not Atlas at all!" 

Wee Mabel replied. 
"God carries this ball; 
It's not Atlas at all, 
For he'd let it fall, 
If ever he tried. 
It's not Atlas at all," 
Wee Mabel replied. 

"Tis Nature must hold it," 

Small Winifred said. 
"I've often been told it, 
'Tis Nature must hold it; 
But how she has rolled it, 
Does puzzle my head. 
'Tis Nature must hold it," 
Small Winifred said. 

Harry answered the lass, 

"O, it holds itself up! 
The inside's of gas," 
Harry answered the lass; 
"It's a big rolling mass, 

And it's got to stay up!" 
Harry answered the lass, 
"O, it holds itself up." 



THE NEW AND THE OLD 

"There's nothing new under the sun," 

Except what's made and that which grows; 
Then this old saw of Solomon, 
"There's nothing new under the sun," 



AESTHETIC EDUCATION 153 



Must be reset, and thus must run: 

"New things from old," for everyone knows 

There's nothing new under the sun, 

Except what's made and that which grows. 

7. The Circle. 

The Circle is a variation of the foregoing 
forms which the author ventures to offer as 
suitable for the description of events that 
move in cycles, such as the circulation of 
water, the procession of the seasons, etc. In 
harmony with the thought, the poem also 
returns into itself. This result is effected by 
the arrangement of the rhymes, and by the 
repetition of the concluding line of each 
stanza as the first line of the next. In reading 
the poem, therefore, one may begin with 
the second or any succeeding stanza, as well 
as with the first, for, since both thought and 
form return into themselves, there would be 
no break in either by so doing. 

The rules for the circle are as follows: 

1. Three or more stanzas of six lines each. 

2. As many rhymes as there are stanzas, 
the first rhyme reappearing in the last 
stanza. 

3. The last line of each stanza to form the 
first line of the next. The last line of the 



154 ESTHETIC EDUCATION 

last stanza, however, is the same as the first 
line of the first stanza. 

4. The rhyming scheme is as follows: 

(a.) For three stanzas: a b a b a b — b c b c b c — 
c a c a c a. 

(b.) For four stanzas: a b a b a b — b c b c b c — 
cdcdc d — d a d a d a. 

The following is an illustration: 

THE SPIRIT OF THE SEA 
(Grcle) 

In fleecy clouds that drift on high 

And cast their shadows on the ground, 

In mists that gather as they lie 

Serene and white, and landward bound 

To pour their waters from the sky, 
The spirit of the sea is found. 

The spirit of the sea is found 

Incarnate in the winds that blow 
And rains that fall with muffled sound; 

And when these waters homeward flow 
They ply again their ceaseless round; 

From sea they come, to sea they go. 

From sea they come, to sea they go — 
The rains descend, the floods sweep by, 

While from the ocean's plane below 
The vapors rise to typify 

The spirit of the sea we know 

In fleecy clouds that drift on high. 



BOOKS 

RECOMMENDED FOR COLLATERAL STUDY 



1. History of Art (Architecture, Sculpture and 

Painting). 

Reinach, S. 

Apollo, An illustrated manual of the History of 
Art throughout the Ages. Brief, scholarly and 
inexpensive. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 

2. Theory of ^Esthetics. 

Gordon, Kate 

Esthetics. Brief, clear and interesting. 

3. History oj ^Esthetics. 

1. Bosanquet, Bernard 

A History of Aistbetic. This is perhaps the best 
and most scholarly history of aesthetics to be 
found in English. Though not an easy book 
to read, it is valuable for reference and 
gives much satisfaction to those who have read 
somewhat in philosophy. The Macmillan 
Company. 

2. Knight, William 

Philosophy of the Beautiful. 2 Vols. Volume I 
gives a concise and readable history of aesthetic 
theory from the earliest times. Volume II is 
an exposition of the nature of beauty, and an 

(i55) 



156 



BOOKS 



application of this theory in the several fine arts. 
Both books were prepared for extension classes, 
hence are written in popular style. However, 
they are not superficial, but will well repay 
reading and study. Charles Scribner's Sons, 
New York. 

4. Color. 

Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes 

Color Problems. A Practical Manual for the 
Lay Student of Color. The several chapters 
treat of color-blindness, color theories, color 
qualities, contrasts and complements, color 
harmonies, historic color, nature color and special 
suggestions. There are one hundred and seven- 
teen color plates. As a first book in the study of 
color it is worthy of the highest praise. Long- 
mans, Green & Co., New York. 

5. Decorative Arts. 

Read John Ruskin's chapter on the Nature of 
Gothic and the office of the workman therein 
in the second volume of the Stones of Venice; 
and William Morris's pamphlet on The Decora- 
tive Arts; their relation to Modern Life and 
Progress. London, Ellis & White. 

6. Development 0/ Dress. 

Webb, Wilfred Mark 

The Heritage of Dress. An illustrated account of 
the development of dress. The McCIure Com- 
pany, New York. 



INDEX 



Acquiring an aesthetic view of the 
world, Suggestions on, 121. 

Esthetic content, 25. 

Esthetic creation, 9. 

/Esthetic view, Scope of the, 16. 

/Esthetic view through poetry, 
133. 

Age of tools is gone, 22. 
Aid from magazines, 132. 
Aluminum cooking vessels, 120. 
American women and dress, 95. 
Aphrodite, 62. 

Applying new principles in old 

ways, 87. 
Architecture, Proportion in, 74. 
Arrangement, Beauty in, 6. 
Arrangement of articles in home 

or school, 130. 
Artistic arrangement. Displays of, 

131. 

Artistic productivity, Need for 

the teacher's, 10. 
Art the remedy for bad fashions, 

95- 

Art vs. fashion, 91. 
Asbestos shingles, 119. 
Attitude of mind, 121. 
Automobile engine, The, 90. 
Awkwardness, 64. 
Axe, The, 75- 

Bailey's "Willing Growers," 106. 
Balance, Symmetry and, 53. 
Ballade, The, 142. 
Barefoot Boy, Whittier's, 65. 
Beautiful, Constituents of the, 
25. 

Beauty in arrangement, 6. 
Biscayne Bay, Sailing on, poem, 
31. 

Bit, The brace and, 82. 
Black Hawk, Statue of, poem, 
108. 

Blue, poem, 70. 

Brace and bit, The, 82. 

Brewing Mischief, Spiegel's, 48. 



Browning's verse, Difficulty of, 
114. 

Buttons on back of men's coats, 
42. 

Byron's "pleasing fear," 98. 

California poppies, 19. 
Capacity, 86. 
Celluloid, 117. 
Characteristic, The, 33. 
Cheap furniture over decorated, 
vox. 

Circle, The, 1 53. 
Claims of nature, ^Esthetic, 20. 
Color lessons from nature, 126. 
Color, Value of, 71. 
Columbus, Monument to, 27. 
Comstock, Mrs., on California 

poppies, 19. 
Concerning nature, 125. 
Constituents of the beautiful, 25. 
Content, The aesthetic, 25. 
Corn, Indian, viewed aesthetically, 

37- 

Correlation of efficiency and 
beauty of proportion, 75. 

Cost of beautiful things, 6. 

Cotton-field viewed aesthetically, 
36. 

Crazes for decoration, 103. 
Creation, /Esthetic, 10. 

"Dead fish," The, 26. 
Decoration, 09. 

Decoration as addition to beauty, 
104. 

Decoration, Crazes for, 103. 
Desire in aesthetics, Selfish, 3. 
Dewey on production of the 

beautiful, 9. 
Diana, 61. 

Discovery, The Spirit of, poem, 28. 
Disharmonies in furniture, 63. 
Display in shop windows, 105. 
Displays of artistic arrangement, 
131- 



(157) 



i 5 8 



INDEX 



Dress as a decoration, 128. 
Dress of American women, 95. 
Dynamic, The, 96. 

Effect of demand on aesthetic 

supply, 6. 
Effect of factory methods, 16. 
Efficiency (in machines), 87. 
Efforts in artistic production, 

The author's, 1 1 . 
Egoistic vs. non- egoistic view 

of nature, 4. 
Elimination of nature from 

aesthetic consideration, 18. 
Emerson on fine and useful arts, 

21. 

Engine, The automobile, 90. 
Ennobling fashion through art, 
94- 

Evolution in dress and furniture, 
91. 

Exclamatory aesthetics, 124. 
Expression, Means of, 47. 
Extent of meaning, 43. 

Factory methods, Effect of, 16. 
Factory workman, Artistic status 
of, 23. 

Fashions, Objectionable, 93. 
Fashion vs. Art, 91. 
First-hand appreciation, 29. 
First-hand study of color, 126. 
"Fish, The dead," 26. 
Form and function in nature, 
42. 

"Form follows function," 28. 
Form inadequate to content, 113. 
Formal orders of beauty, 66. 
Form without content, 112. 
Freedom in verse, Too much, 138. 
Functional meaning, 40. 
Function, Form follows, 28. 
Function of beauty, Social and 

psychological, 4. 
Furniture, Lack of harmony in, 

63. 

General through the particular, 

The, 45- 
George Bernard Shaw, 112. 
Grace, Harmony and, 58. 
Guns, The, 84. 



"Half an artist," 46. 
Hammer, The, 84. 
Harmony and grace, 58. 
Hats may come and hats may 
go, 41. 

Herbert Spencer on decoration, 
93- 

Horizontal vs. vertical symmetry, 
54. 

Hotel Ponce de Leon, 116. 

Idealized relation to the whole of 
life, 36. 

Ideal unity of content and form, 
110. 

Illustrations in periodicals, 43. 

I Love to Sail, poem, 146. 

Imitations, Legitimate and il- 
legitimate, 115. 

Inadequacies of material, 114. 

Indian corn viewed aesthetically, 
37. m 

Imitation of nature second-hand 

art, 17. 
In Poppy Land, poem, 20. 
In Tender Grief, poem, 147. 
Internal development. Machines 

having an, 85. 

John Ruskin, 21. 
"Juba," 51. 

Kant, quoted, 3. 

Lorado Taft's Monument to 

Golumbus, 27. 
Life, Idealized relation to che 

whole of, 36. 
Lions, The, poem, 44. 
Locomotives, 89. 

Mach, quoted, 54. 

Machines having an internal 

development, 85. 
Magazines, Aid from, 132. 
Maker vs. user of articles, 23. 
Mail-order houses, The, 101. 
Meaning, Extent of, 43. 
Meaning, Functional, 40. 
Meaning in sculpture and paint* 

ing, 25. 
Meaning, Objective, 33. 



INDEX 



159 



"Meaning wider than the frame/' 

44- 
Means, 9. 

Means of aesthetic expression 

concrete and plain, 30. 
Means of expression, 47. 
Mind, Attitude of, 121. 
Mitigated barbarities of dress, 

102. 

Monkey and Stillson wrenches, 
77- 

Morris, William, 21. 
My Opals, poem, 145. 

Nature, Esthetic claims of, 20. 
Nature, Imitation of, 17. 
Nature independent of man, 17. 
Nature indispensable in aesthetic 

education, 18. 
Non-egoistic vs. egoistic view of 

nature, 4. 

Objectifying emotion-charged im- 
ages, 9. 

Objectionable fashions, 93. 

Objective meaning, 33. 

Old ways of applying new prin- 
ciples, 87. 

Opals, My, poem, 145. 

Orders of beauty. Formal, 66. 

Over-decoration, 100. 

Painting and sculpture, Meaning 
in, 25. 

Painting of steel Pullman cars, 
119. 

Parting of Romeo and Juliet, 

poem, 149. 
Passive aesthetic education, 9. 
Pathological treatment for bad 

taste, 103. 
Pennsylvania R. R. Station, 117. 
Personal or subjective meaning, 

35- 

Phidias, 121. 

Plane, The, 81. 

Plaster of Paris, 120. 

Plato, quoted, 7. 

Play and Work, poem, 143. 

Play theory of art, Schiller's, 122. 

Poesy vs. Poetry, 135. 

Poetry vs. Poesy, 135. 



Poetry, Artistic view through, 
133. 

Poppies, Mrs. Comstock on, 19. 
Poppy Land, In, poem, 20. 
Proportion (the mathematical 

element), 72. 
Proportion in architecture, 74. 
Psychological function of beauty, 

4- 

Psychological sequence in verse, 
136. 

Pullman steel cars. Painting of, 

119. 
Purpose, 1. 

Red, poem, 69. 

Reduction of art to technique, 
17. 

Regularity and Rhythm, 50. 
Regularity with reversal, 53. 
Reliability, 86. 

Remington typewriter. First, 88. 
Retention of parts as decoration, 
41. 

Rhythm and Regularity, 50. 
Rodin on Nature, 18. 
Rodin's "Man Walking," 57. 
Rondeau, The, 144. 
Rondel, The, 146. 
Roses and strings, 88. 
Roundel, The, 147. 
Ruskin, John, 21. 

Sailing on Biscayne Bay, poem, 
3i. 

Saw, The, 79. 

Schiller's doctrine of aesthetics, 2. 

Schiller's play theory of art, 1 22. 

Scope of the aesthetic view, 16. 

Sculpture and painting. Mean- 
ing in, 25. 

Selfish desire in aesthetics, 3. 

Seminole women, 92. 

Senior's Farewell, The, poem, 1 50. 

Sense medium, The, 25. 

Sensuous as such. The, 67. 

Sequence in verse, Psychological, 
136. 

Shaw, George Bernard, 112. 
Shop window displays, 105. 
Sleep, Sweetheart, Sleep, poem, 
148. 



i6o 



INDEX 



Smell, 68. 

Snow Bound, Whittier's, 38. 
Sonnet, The, 138. 
Spirit of discovery, The, poem, 28. 
Spirit of the Sea, The, poem, 
154. 

Spiegel's Brewing Mischief, 48. 
Statue of Black Hawk, poem, 
108. 

Status of factory workmen in 
arts, 23. 

Steel Pullman cars, Painting of, 
119. 

Stillson and Monkey wrenches, 
77- 

Strings and roses, 88. 
Subjective or personal meaning, 
35- 

Supper, The Lord's, painting of, 
26. 

Symmetry and balance, 53. 

Taft's Monument to Columbus, 
27. 

Taft's Statue of Black Hawk, 
poem, 108. 

Taine's English Literature, 
quoted, 14. 

Teacher's need of artistic pro- 
ductivity, 10. 

Technique, Reduction of art to, 
17. 

Teleological, The passively, 09. 
The Automobile engine, 90. 
The axe, 75. 
The ballade, 142. 
The Bird at the Banquet, poem, 
14. 

The Brace and bit, 82. 
The Characteristic, 33. 
The Circle, 153. 

The cotton field viewed aestheti- 
cally, 36. 

The dynamic, 96. 

The guns, 84. 

The hammer, 84. 

The Lions, poem, 44. 

The Lord's Supper, Painting of, 
26. 

The mail-order houses, 101. 
The mathematical (proportion), 
72. 



The New and the Old, poem, 
152. 

The new definite forms of verse, 
140. 

The Old Oaken Bucket, reference 
to, 38. 

The Parting of Romeo and Juliet, 

poem, 149. 
The passively teleological, 99. 
The plane, 81. 
The Rondeau, 144. 
The Rondel, 146. 
The Roundel, 147 
The Senior's Farewell, poem, 

150. 

The sensuous as such, 67, 
Thesis on Correlation of effi- 
ciency and proportion, 75. 
The sober background of color, 
126. 

The Sonnet, 138. 
The Spirit of Discovery, poem, 
28. 

The Spirit of the Sea, poem, 
154. 

The Triolet, 151. 
Triolet, The, 151. 
The typical, 107. 
The useful arts, Suggestions on, 
130. 

The Villanelle, 148. 
The Vital, 105. 
The Wheel, poem, 38. 
The White Birch, poem, 12. 
The Wild Rose, poem, 4. 
Tides, poem, 34. 
Tools, Age of, gone, 22. 
Tools and utensils, 75. 
Too much freedom in verse, 
138. 

Typewriter, First Remington, 
88. 

Typical, The, 107. 

Unity in variety, 48. 

User vs. maker of articles, 23. 

Utensils and tools, 75. 

Value of color, 71. 
Variety in unity, 48. 
Veneer, 117. 
Venus of Milos, 62. 



INDEX 



161 



Verse forms, The new definite, 
140. 

Vertical vs. horizontal symmetry, 
54. 

Victory of Samothrace, 62. 
ViUanelle, The, 148. 
Vital, The, 105. 

Von Hartmann's orders of beauty, 
66. 

Washington, Monument to Col- 
umbus at, 27. 



White Birch, The, poem, 12. 

Wheel, The, poem, 38. 

What Holds the World Up? 

poems on, 1 52. 
Whittier's, Barefoot Boy, 65. 
Whittier's Snow Bound, 38. 
William Morris, 21. 
"Willing growers," Bailey's, 

106. 

Women, Seminole, 92. 
Yellow, poem, 70. 



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